 THE VERGINIAN, A HORSEMAN OF THE PLANES. TO THEODORE ROSEVELD. Some of these pages you have seen, some you have praised, one stands new written because you blamed it, and all, my dear critic, beg leave to remind you of their author's changeless admiration. TO THE READER. Certain of the newspapers, when this book was first announced, made a mistake most natural upon seeing the subtitle as it then stood, A Tale of Sundry Adventures. This sounds like a historical novel, said one of them, meaning I take it a colonial romance. As it now stands, the title will scarcely lead to such interpretation, yet nonetheless is this book historical, quite as much so as any colonial romance. Indeed, when you look at the root of the matter, it is a colonial romance. For Wyoming between 1874 and 1890 was a colony as wild as was Virginia 100 years earlier, as wild with a scantier population and the same primitive joys and dangers. There were, to be sure, not so many Chippendale satis. We know quite well the common understanding of the term historical novel. Hugh Wynne exactly fits it, but Silas Lapham is a novel as perfectly historical as is Hugh Wynne, for it pictures an era and personifies a type. It matters not that in the one we find George Washington, and in the other none save imaginary figures, else the scarlet letter were not historical. Nor does it matter that Dr. Mitchell did not live in the time of which he wrote, while Mr. Howell saw many Silas Lapham's with his own eyes, else Uncle Tom's cabin were not historical. Any narrative which presents faithfully a day and a generation is of necessity historical, and this one presents Wyoming between 1874 and 1890. Had you left New York or San Francisco at ten o'clock this morning, by noon the day after tomorrow you could step out at Cheyenne. There you would stand at the heart of the world that is the subject of my picture, yet you would look around you in vain for the reality. It is a vanished world. No journeys save those which memory can take will bring you to it now. The mountains are there, far and shining, and the sunlight, and the infinite earth, and the air that seems forever the true fountain of youth. But where is the buffalo and the wild antelope, and where the horseman with his pasturing thousands? So like its old self does the sagebrush seem, when revisited, that you wait for the horseman to appear. But he will never come again. He rides in his historic yesterday. You will no more see him gallop out of the unchanging silence than you will see Columbus on the unchanging sea come sailing from Palos with his caravals. And yet the horseman is still so near our day that in some chapters of this book, which were published separate at the close of the nineteenth century, the present tense was used. It is true no longer. In those chapters it has been changed, and verbs like is and have now read was and had. Time has flowed faster than my ink. What has become of the horseman, the cow-puncher, the last romantic figure upon our soil? For he was romantic. Whatever he did, he did with his might. The bread that he earned was earned hard. The wages that he squandered were squandered hard. Offerers' pay sometimes gone in a night. Blown in, as he expressed it, or blowed in to be perfectly accurate. Well, he will be here among us always, invisible, waiting his chance to live and play as he would like. His wild kind has been among us always, since the beginning. A young man with his temptations, a hero without wings. The cow-puncher's ungoverned hours did not unman him. If he gave his word, he kept it. Wall Street would have found him behind the times. Nor did he talk loodly to women. Newport would have thought him old-fashioned. He and his brief epic make a complete picture, for in themselves they were as complete as the pioneers of the land or the explorers of the sea. A transition has followed the horseman of the plains, a shapeless state, a condition of men and manors as unlovely as is that moment in the year when winter is gone and spring not come and the face of nature is ugly. I shall not dwell upon it here. Those who have seen it know well what I mean. Such transition was inevitable. Let us give thanks that it is but a transition and not a finality. Sometimes readers inquire, did I know the Virginian? As well I hope as a father should know his son. And sometimes it is asked, was such and such a thing true? Now to this I have the best answer in the world. Once a cow-puncher listened patiently while I read him a manuscript. It concerned an event upon an Indian reservation. Was that the crow reservation he inquired at the finish? I told him that it was no real reservation and no real event, and his face expressed displeasure. Why, he demanded, do you waste your time writing what never happened when you know so many things that did happen? And I could no more help telling him that this was the highest compliment ever paid me than I have been able to help telling you about it here. Charleston, SC March 31, 1902. CHAPTER I ENTER THE MAN Some notable sight was drawing the passengers, both men and women, to the window, and therefore I rose and crossed the car to see what it was. I saw near the track an enclosure, and rounded some laughing men, and inside it some whirling dust, and amid the dust some horses, plunging, huddling, and dodging. They were cow ponies in a corral, and one of them would not be caught no matter who threw the rope. We had plenty of time to watch this sport, for our train had stopped at the engine might take water at the tank before it pulled us up beside the station platform of Medicine Bow. We were also six hours late and starving for entertainment. The pony in the corral was wise and rapid of limb. Have you seen a skillful boxer watch his antagonist with a quiet, incessant eye? Such an eye as this did the pony keep upon whatever man took the rope. The man might pretend to look at the weather, which was fine, or he might affect earnest conversation with a bystander. It was bootless. The pony saw through it. No faint hoodwinked him. This animal was thoroughly a man of the world. His undistracted eye stayed fixed upon the dissembling foe, and the gravity of his horse expression made the matter one of high comedy. Then the rope would sail out at him, but he was already elsewhere. And if horses laugh, gaiety must have abounded in that corral. Sometimes the pony took a turn alone. Next he had slid in a flash among his brothers, and the whole of them, like a school of playful fish, whipped round the corral, kicking up the fine dust, and, I take it, roaring with laughter. Through the window glass of our pullman, the thud of their mischievous hoofs reached us, and the strong, humorous curses of the cowboys. Then for the first time I noticed a man who sat on the high gate of the corral looking on. For he now climbed down with the undulations of a tiger, smooth and easy as if his muscles flowed beneath his skin. The others had all visibly whirled the rope, some of them even shoulder high. I did not see his arm lift or move. He appeared to hold the rope down low by his leg, but like a sudden snake I saw the noose go out its length and fall true, and the thing was done. As the captured pony walked in with a sweet church door expression, our train moved slowly on to the station, and a passenger remarked, That man knows his business. But the passenger's dissertation upon roping I was obliged to lose, for Medicine Bow was my station. I bade my fellow travelers goodbye and descended a stranger into the great cattle land, and here in less than ten minutes I learned news which made me feel a stranger indeed. My baggage was lost. It had not come on my train. It was adrift somewhere back in the two thousand miles that lay behind me, and by way of comfort the baggage man remarked that passengers often got astray from their trunks, but the trunks mostly found them after a while. Having offered me this encouragement he turned whistling to his affairs and left me planted in the baggage room at Medicine Bow. I stood deserted among crates and boxes, blankly holding my check, hungry and forlorn. I stared out through the door at the sky and the planes, but I did not see the antelope shining among the sagebrush, nor the great sunset light of Wyoming. Annoyance blinded my eyes to all things save my grievance. I saw only a lost trunk, and I was muttering half-aloud, what a forsaken whole this is, when suddenly from outside on the platform came a slow voice. Off to get married again? Oh, don't! The voice was southern and gentle and drawing, and a second voice came in immediate answer, cracked and quarrelous. It ain't again. Who says it's again? Who told you anyway? And the first voice responded, caressingly, Why, your Sunday clothes, told me, Uncle Huey, They are speaking mighty loud and nuptials. You don't worry me, snapped Uncle Huey, with shrill heat, and the other gently continued. Ain't them gloves the same you wore to your last wedding? You don't worry me, you don't worry me, now screamed Uncle Huey. Already I had forgotten my trunk. Care had left me. I was aware of the sunset and had no desire but for more of this conversation, for it resembled none that I had heard in my life so far. I stepped to the door and looked out upon the station platform. Lounging there at ease against the wall was a slim young giant more beautiful than pictures. His broad, soft hat was pushed back, a loose-knotted, dull scarlet handkerchief sagged from his throat, and one casual thumb was hooked in the cartridge belt that slanted across his hips. He had plainly come many miles from somewhere across the vast horizon, as the dust upon him showed. His boots were white with it, his overalls were gray with it, the weather-beaten bloom of his face shone through it duskily, as the ripe peaches look upon their trees in a dry season. But no dinginess of travel or shabbiness of attire could tarnish the splendor that radiated from his youth and strength. The old man upon whose temper his remarks were doing such deadly work was combed and curried to a finish, a bridegroom swept and garnished. At a last for age had I been the bride, I should have taken the giant, dust and all. He had by no means done with the old man. Why, you've hung wedding garments on every limb, he now drawled with admiration. Who is the lucky lady this trip? The old man seemed to vibrate. Tell you there ain't been no other. Call me a Mormon, would you? Why that? Call me a Mormon? Then name some of my wives, name two, name one, dare you. That Laramie Witte promised you shucks. Only her doctor suddenly ordered southern climate, and shucks, you're a false alarm. So nothing but her lungs came between you, and next you'd most got united with cattle Kate only tell you you're a false alarm, only she got hung. Where's the wives in all this? Show the wives, come now. That corn-fed biscuit shooter at Rawland you gave the canary. Never married her, never did marry. But you come so near, uncle. She was the one left you that letter explaining how she'd got married to a young keyard player the very day before her ceremony with you was due, and oh, you're nothing, you're a kid, you don't amount to—and how she'd never, never forgot to feed the canary. These countries getting full of kids, stated the old man witheringly, it's doomed. This crushing assertion plainly satisfied him, and he blinked his eyes with renewed anticipation. His tall tormentor continued with a face of unchanging gravity and a voice of gentle solicitude. How is the health of that unfortunate—that's right, pour your insults, pour them on a sick, afflicted woman. The eyes blinked with combative relish. Insults? Oh, no, uncle Huey. That's all right, insults goes. Why, I was mighty relieved when she began to recover her memory. Last time I heard, they told me she'd got it pretty near all back. Remembered her father and her mother and her sisters and brothers and her friends and her happy childhood and all her doings except only your face. The boys was betting she'd get that far, too, give her time, but I reckon after such a terrible sickness as she had, that would be expected most too much. At this, uncle Huey jerked out a small parcel. Shows how much you know, he cackled. There, see that? That's my ring she sent me back, being too unstrung for marriage, so she don't remember me, don't she? Ha-ha! Always said you were a false alarm. The Southerner put more anxiety into his tone. And so you're a-taken the ring right on to the next one, he exclaimed. Oh, don't go to get married again, uncle Huey. What's the use of being married? What's the use, echoed the bridegroom with scorn, when you grow up, you'll think different. Of course, I expect to think different when my age is different. I'm havin' the thoughts proper to twenty-four, and you're havin' the thoughts proper to sixty. Fifty, shrieked uncle Huey, jumping in the air. The Southerner took a tone of self-reproach. Now, how could I forget you was fifty, he murmured, when you have been tellin' it to the boys so careful for the last ten years? Have you ever seen a cockatoo, the white kind with the top knot, enraged by insult? The bird erects every available feather upon its person. So did uncle Huey seem to swell, close, mustache, and woolly white beard, and without further speech he took himself on board the eastbound train, which now arrived from its sighting in time to deliver him. Yet this was not why he had not gone away before. At any time he could have escaped into the baggage room, or withdrawn to a dignified distance until his train should come up. But the old man had evidently got a sort of joy from this teasing. He had reached that inevitable age when we are tickled to be linked with affairs of gallantry, no matter how. With him now the eastbound departed slowly into that distance once I had come. I stared after it as it went its way to the far shores of civilization. It grew small in the unending gulf of space until all sign of its presence was gone save a faint skein of smoke against the evening sky. And now my lost trunk came back into my thoughts, and Medicine Bow seemed a lonely spot. A sort of ship had left me marooned in a foreign ocean. The Pullman was comfortably steaming home to port, while I—how was I to find Judge Henry's ranch, where in this unfeatured wilderness was Sunk Creek. No creek or any water at all flowed here that I could perceive. My host had written he should meet me at the station and drive me to his ranch. This was all that I knew. He was not here. The baggage man had not seen him lately. The ranch was almost certain to be too far to walk to, to-night. My trunk, I discovered myself still staring dolefully after the vanished eastbound, and at the same instant I became aware that the tall man was looking gravely at me, as gravely as he had looked at Uncle Huey throughout their remarkable conversation. To see his eye thus fixing me, and his thumb still hooked in his cartridge belt, certain tales of travelers from these parts forced themselves disquietingly into my recollection. Now that Uncle Huey was gone, was I to take his place, and be, for instance, invited to dance on the platform to the music of shots, nicely aimed? I reckon I am looking for you, sir, the tall man now observed. CHAPTER II When you call me that, smile. We cannot see ourselves as others see us, or I should know what appearance I cut at hearing this from the tall man. I said nothing, feeling uncertain. I reckon I am looking for you, sir, he repeated politely. I am looking for Judge Henry, I now replied. He walked toward me, and I saw that in inches he was not a giant. He was not more than six feet. It was Uncle Huey that had made him seem to tower. But in his eye, in his face, in his step, in the whole man, there dominated as something potent to be felt I should think by man or woman. The Judge sent me after you, sir, he now explained in his civil southern voice, and he handed me a letter from my host. Had I not witnessed his facetious performances with Uncle Huey, I should have judged him wholly ungifted with such powers. There was nothing external about him but what seemed the signs of a nature as grave as you could meet. But I had witnessed, and therefore supposing that I knew him in spite of his appearance, that I was, so to speak, in his secret, and could give him a sort of wink, I adopted at once a method of easiness. It was so pleasant to be easy with a large stranger who, instead of shooting at your heels, had very civilly handed you a letter. You're from Old Virginia, I take it, I began. He answered slowly, Then you have taken it correct, sir. A slight chill passed over my easiness, but I went cheerily on with a further inquiry. Find many oddities out here like Uncle Huey? Yes, sir, there is a right smart of oddities around. They come in on every train. At this point I dropped my method of easiness. I wished that trunks came on the train, said I, and I told him my predicament. It was not to be expected that he would be greatly moved at my loss, but he took it with no comment, whatever. We'll wait in town for it, said he, always perfectly civil. Now, what I had seen of town was, to my newly arrived eyes, altogether horrible, if I could possibly sleep at the judge's ranch, I preferred to do so. Is it too far to drive there tonight, I inquired. He looked at me in a puzzled manner. For this valise, I explained, contains all that I immediately need. In fact, I could do without my trunk for a day or two if it is not convenient to send. So if we could arrive there not too late by starting at once, I paused. It's two hundred and sixty-three miles, said the Virginian. To my loud ejaculation he made no answer, but surveyed me a moment longer and then said, Supper will be about ready now. He took my valise and I followed his steps toward the eating-house in silence. I was dazed. As we went, I read my host's letter, a brief hospitable message. He was very sorry not to meet me himself. He had been getting ready to drive over when the surveyor appeared and detained him. Therefore in his stead he was sending a trustworthy man to town who would look after me and drive me over. They were looking forward to my visit with much pleasure. This was all. Yes, I was dazed. How did they count distance in this country? You spoke in a neighborly fashion about driving over to town and it meant I did not know yet how many days. And what would be meant by the term dropping in, I wondered, and how many miles would be considered really far. I abstained from further questioning the trustworthy man. My questions had not fared excessively well. He did not propose making me dance, to be sure. That would scarcely be trustworthy. But neither did he propose to have me familiar with him. Why was this? What had I done to elicit that veiled and skillful sarcasm about oddities coming in on every train? Having been sent to look after me he would do so, would even carry my valise, but I could not be jocular with him. This handsome, ungrammatical son of the soil had set between us the bar of his cold and perfect civility. No polished person could have done it better. What was the matter? I looked at him and suddenly it came to me. If he had tried familiarity with me the first two minutes of our acquaintance I should have resented it. By what right then had I tried it with him? It smacked of patronizing. On this occasion he had come off the better gentleman of the two. Here in flesh and blood was a truth which I had long believed in words but never met before. The creature we call a gentleman lies deep in the hearts of thousands that are born without chance to master the outward graces of the type. Between the station and the eating-house I did a deal of straight thinking, but my thoughts were destined presently to be drowned in amazement at the rare personage into whose society fate had thrown me. Town, as they called it, pleased me the less the longer I saw it, but until our language stretches itself and takes in a new word of closer fit town will have to do for the name of such a place as was Medicine Bow. I have seen and slept in many like it since. Scattered wide they littered the frontier from the Columbia to the Rio Grande, from the Missouri to the Sierras. They lay stark, dotted over a planet of treeless dust like soiled packs of cards. Each was similar to the next, as one old five-spot-of-clubs resembles another. Houses, empty bottles, and garbage they were forever of the same shapeless pattern. More forlorn they were than stale bones. They seemed to have been strewn there by the wind, and to be waiting till the wind should come again and blow them away. Yet serene above their foulness swam a pure and quiet light such as the east never sees. They might be bathing in the air of creation's first morning. Beneath sun and stars their days and nights were immaculate and wonderful. Medicine Bow was my first, and I took its dimensions, twenty-nine buildings in all. One cold chute, one water tank, the station, one store, two eating houses, one billiard hall, two toolhouses, one feed stable, and twelve others that for one reason and another I shall not name. Yet this wretched husk of squalor spent thought upon appearances. Many houses in it wore a false front to seem as if they were two stories high. There they stood, rearing their pitiful masquerade amid a fringe of old tin cans, while at their very doors began a world of crystal light, a land without end, a space across which Noah and Adam might come straight from Genesis. Into that space went wandering a road, over a hill and down out of sight, and up again smaller in the distance, and down once more, and up once more, straining the eyes and so away. Then I heard a fellow greet my Virginian. He came rollicking out of a door, and made a pass with his hand at the Virginian's hat. The Southerner dodged it, and I saw once more the tiger undulation of body, and knew my escort was he of the rope and the corral. "'How are you, Steve?' he said to the rollicking man, and in his tone I heard instantly old friendship speaking. With Steve he would take and give familiarity. Steve looked at me, and looked away, and that was all. But it was enough. In no company had I ever felt so much an outsider. Yet I liked the company, and wished that it would like me. Just come to town, inquired Steve of the Virginian. Been here since noon, been waiting for the train. Going out to-night? I reckon I'll pull out to-morrow. "'Beds are all took,' said Steve. This was for my benefit. "'Dear me,' said I. "'But I guess one of them drummers will let you double up with him.' Steve was enjoying himself, I think. He had his saddle and blankets, and beds were nothing to him. "'Drummers are they?' asked the Virginian. Two Jews handling cigars, one American with consumption killer, and a Dutchman with jewelry. The Virginian sat down my valise and seemed to meditate. "'I did want a bed tonight,' he murmured gently. "'Well,' Steve suggested, the American looks like he washed the oftenest. "'That's of no consequence to me,' observed the Southerner. "'Guess it'll be when you see him. "'Oh, I'm meanin' somethin' different. "'I wanted a bed to myself. "'Then you'll have to build one. "'Betcha I have the Dutchmans. "'Take a man that won't scare. "'Betcha drinks, you can't have the Americans.' "'Go, you,' said the Virginian. "'I'll have his bed without any fuss. "'Thanks for the crowd.' "'I suppose you have me beat,' said Steve, grinning at him affectionately. "'You're such a son of a—when you get down to work. "'Well, so long. "'I gotta go fix my horse's hoofs.' I had expected that the man would be struck down. He had used to the Virginian a term of heaviest insult, I thought. I had marveled to hear it come so unheralded from Steve's friendly lips. And now I marveled still more. Evidently he had meant no harm by it, and evidently no offence had been taken. Used thus, this language was plainly complementary. I had stepped into a world new to me indeed, and novelties were occurring with scarce any time to get breath between them. As to where I should sleep, I had forgotten that problem altogether in my curiosity. What was the Virginian going to do now? I began to know that the quiet of this man was volcanic. "'Will you wash first, sir?' We were at the door of the eating-house, and he set my valise inside. In my tender-foot innocence I was looking indoors for the washing arrangements. "'It's out he has, sir,' he informed me gravely, but with strong southern accent. Uncle Murth seemed often to heighten the local flavour of his speech. There were other times when it had scarce any special accent or fault in grammar. A trough was to my right, slippery with soapy water, and hanging from a roller above one end of it was a rag of discouraging appearance. The Virginian caught it, and it performed one whirling revolution on its roller. Not a dry or clean inch could be found on it. He took off his hat and put his head in the door. "'Your towel, ma'am,' said he, "'has been too popular.' She came out, a pretty woman. Her eyes rested upon him for a moment, then upon me with disfavour. Then they returned to his black hair. "'The allowance is one a day,' she said very quietly. But, when folks are particular, she completed her sentence by removing the old towel and giving a clean one to us. "'Thank you, ma'am,' said the cow-puncher. She looked once more at his black hair, and without any word returned to her guests at supper. A pail stood in the trough, almost empty, and this he filled for me from a well. There was some soap sliding at large in the trough, but I got my own. And then, in a tin basin, I removed as many of the stains of travel as I was able. It was not much of a toilet that I made in this first wash trough of my experience, but it had to suffice, and I took my seat at supper. Canstuff it was, corned beef, and one of my table companions said the truth about it. "'When I slung my teeth over that,' he remarked, "'I thought I was chewing a hammock. We had strange coffee and condensed milk, and I have never seen more flies. I made no attempt to talk, for no one in this country seemed favorable to me. By reason of something, my clothes, my hat, my pronunciation, whatever it might be, I possessed the secret of estranging people at sight. Yet I was doing better than I knew. My strict silence and attention to the corned beef made me in the eyes of the cowboys at table compare well with the over-talkative commercial travelers. The Virginian's entrance produced a slight silence. He had done wonders with the wash trough, and he had somehow brushed his clothes. With all the roughness of his dress he was now the neatest of us. He nodded to some of the other cowboys and began his meal in quiet. But silence is not the native element of the drummer. An average fish can go a longer time out of water than this breed can live without talking. One of them now looked across the table at the grave flannel-shirted Virginian. He inspected and came to the imprudent conclusion that he understood his man. Good evening, he said briskly. Good evening, said the Virginian. Just come to town, pursued the drummer. Just come to town, the Virginian suavely assented. Cattle business jumping along, inquired the drummer. Oh fair, and the Virginian took some more corned beef. Gets a move on your appetite anyway, suggested the drummer. The Virginian drank some coffee. Presently, the pretty woman refilled his cup without his asking her. Guess I've met you before, the drummer stated next. The Virginian glanced at him for a brief moment. Haven't I now? Ain't I seen you somewhere? Look at me. You've been in Chicago, ain't you? You look at me well. Remember Ikeys, don't you? I don't reckon I do. See now, I know you'd been in Chicago four or five years ago, or maybe it's two years. Times nothing to me, but I never forget a face. Yes, sir. Him and me's met at Ikeys, all right. This important point, the drummer stated to all of us. We were called to witness how well he had proved old acquaintanceship. Ain't the world small, though, he exclaimed complacently. Meet a man once and you're sure to run onto him again. That's straight. That's no bar room, Josh. And the drummer's eyes included us all in his confidence. I wondered if he had attained that high perfection when a man believes his own lies. The Virginian did not seem interested. He placidly attended to his food while our landlady moved between dining room and kitchen, and the drummer expanded. Yes, sir, Ikeys, over by the stockyards, patronized by all cattlemen that knows what's what. That's where. Maybe it's three years. Time never was nothing to me, but faces why I can't quit them. Adults or children, male and female, once I seen them, I couldn't lose one off my memory, not if you were to pay me bounty, five dollars a face. White men, that is, can't do nothing with niggers or Chinese, but you're white alright. The drummer suddenly returned to the Virginian with this high compliment. The cow puncher had taken out a pipe and was slowly rubbing it. The compliment seemed to escape his attention, and the drummer went on. I can tell a man when he's white, put him at Ikeys or out loose here in the sage brush, and he rolled a cigar across to the Virginian's plate. Selling them, inquired the Virginian. Solid goods, my friend, Havana wrappers, the biggest tobacco proposition for five cents got out yet. Take it, try it, light it, watch it burn, here, and he held out a bunch of matches. The Virginian tossed a five-cent piece over to him. Oh, no, my friend, not from you, not after Ikeys. I don't forget you, see, I knowed your face right away. See, that's straight, I seen you at Chicago all right. Maybe you did, said the Virginian. Sometimes I'm mighty careless what I look at. Well, pie-dam! now exclaimed the Dutch drummer hilariously. I am plume disappointed, I was hoping to sell him some dings myself. Not the same here, stated the American, he's too healthy for me, I gave him up on site. Now it was the American drummer whose bed the Virginian had in his eye. This was a sensible man, and had talked less than his brothers in the trade. I had little doubt who would end by sleeping in his bed, but how the thing would be done interested me more deeply than ever. The Virginian looked amiably at his intended victim, and made one or two remarks regarding patent medicines. There must be a good deal of money in them, he supposed, with a live man to manage them. The victim was flattered. No other person at the table had been favored with so much of the tall cow puncher's notice. He responded, and they had a pleasant talk. I did not divine that the Virginian's genius was even then at work, and that all this was part of his Satanic strategy. But Steve must have divined it, for while a few of us still sat finishing our supper, that facetious horseman returned from doctoring his horse's hoofs, put his head into the dining room, took in the way in which the Virginian was engaging his victim in conversation, remarked aloud, I've lost, and close the door again. What's he lost? inquired the American drummer. Oh, you mustn't mind him, draw the Virginian. He's one of those box-head jokers, goes around opening and shutting doors that away. We call him harmless. Well, he broke off. I reckon I'll go smoke. Not allowed in here? Just last he addressed to the landlady with his special gentleness. She shook her head, and her eyes followed him as he went out. Left to myself, I meditated for some time upon my lodging for the night, and smoked a cigar for consolation as I walked about. It was not a hotel that we had supped in. Hotel at Medicine Bow there appeared to be none, but connected with the eating-house tables was that place where, according to Steve, the beds were all taken, and there I went to see for myself. Steve had spoken the truth. It was a single apartment containing four or five beds and nothing else whatever, and when I looked at these beds, my sorrow that I could sleep in none of them grew less. To be alone in one offered no temptation, and as for this courtesy of the country, I was doubling up. Well, they have got ahead of us. This was the Virginian standing at my elbow. I assented. They have staked out their claims, he added. In this public sleeping room they had done what one does to secure a seat in a railroad train. Upon each bed, as notice of occupancy, lay some article of travel or of dress. As we stood there, the two Jews came in and opened and arranged their valises, and folded and refolded their linen dusters. Then a railroad employee entered and began to go to bed at this hour, before dusk had wholly darkened in to-night. For him going to bed meant removing his boots and placing his overalls and waistcoat beneath his pillow. He had no coat. His work began at three in the morning, and even as we still talk, he began to snore. �The man that keeps the store is a friend of mine,� said the Virginian, �and you can be pretty near comfortable on his counter. Got any blankets? I had no blankets.� �Looking for a bed?� inquired the American drummer, now arriving. �Yes, he's looking for a bed,� answered the voice of Steve, behind him. �Seems a waste of time,� observed the Virginian. He looked thoughtfully from one bed to another. �I didn't know I'd have to lay over here. Well, I have sat up before.� �This one's mine,� said the drummer, sitting down on it. �Half's plenty enough room for me.� �You're certainly mighty kind,� said the cow-puncher, �but I'd not think of a disconvenience in you.� �That's nothing. The other half is yours. Turn in right now, if you feel like it.� �No, I don't reckon I'll turn in right now. Better keep your bed to yourself.� �See here,� urged the drummer, �if I take you, I'm safe from drawing some party I might not care so much about. This here sleep in proposition is a lottery.� �Well,� said the Virginian, �and his hesitation was truly masterly. If you put it that way.� �I do put it that way. Why, you're clean. You've had a shave right now. You turn in when you feel inclined, old man. I ain't retiring just yet.� The drummer had struck a slightly false note in these last remarks. He should not have said �old man.� Until this I had thought him merely an amiable person who wished to do a favor. But old man came in wrong. It had a hateful taint of his profession, the being too soon with everybody, the celluloid good fellowship that passes for ivory with nine and ten of the city crowd, but not so with the sons of the sagebrush. They live nearer nature and they know better. But the Virginian blandly accepted old man from his victim. He had a game to play. �Well, I certainly thank you,� he said, �after a while I'll take advantage of your kind offer.� I was surprised. Possession being nine points of the law it seemed his very chance to entrench himself in the bed. But the cow puncher had planned a campaign needing no entrenchments. Moreover going to bed before nine o�clock upon the first evening in many weeks that a town's resources were open to you would be a dull proceeding. Our entire company, drummer and all, now walked over to the store and here my sleeping arrangements were made easily. This store was the cleanest place and the best in Medicine Bow and would have been a good store anywhere offering a multitude of things for sale and kept by a very civil proprietor. He bade me make myself at home and place both of his counters at my disposal. On the grocery side there stood a cheese too large and strong to sleep near comfortably and I therefore chose the dry good side. Here thick quilts were unrolled for me to make it soft and no condition was placed upon me further than that I should remove my boots because the quilts were new and clean and for sale. So now my rest was assured. Not an anxiety remained in my thoughts. These therefore turned themselves wholly to the other man's bed and how he was going to lose it. I think that Steve was more curious even than myself. Time was on the wing. His bet must be decided and the drinks enjoyed. He stood against the grocery counter contemplating the Virginian, but it was to me that he spoke. The Virginian however listened to every word. Your first visit to this country? I told him yes. How do you like it? I expected to like it very much. How does the climate strike you? I thought the climate was fine. Makes a man thirsty though. This was the subcurrent which the Virginian plainly looked for, but he, like Steve, addressed himself to me. Yes he put in, thirsty while a man soft yet, you'll harden. I guess you'll find it a drier country than you were given to expect, said Steve. If your habits have been frequent that way, said the Virginian. There's parts of Wyoming, pursued Steve, where you'll go hours and hours before you'll see a drop of wetness. If you keep a thinking about it, said the Virginian, it'll seem like days and days. Steve at this stroke gave up and clapped him on the shoulder with a joyous chuckle. You old son of a, he cried affectionately. Drinks are due now, said the Virginian. My treat, Steve, but I reckon your suspense will have to linger a while yet. Thus they dropped into direct talk from that speech of the fourth dimension where they had been using me for their telephone. Any keyards going tonight, inquired the Virginian. Stud and draw, Steve told him, strangers playing. I think I'd like to get into a game for a while, said the Southerner. Strangers, you say? And then, before quitting the store, he made his toilet for this little hand at poker. It was a simple preparation. He took his pistol from his holster, examined it, then shoved it between his overalls and his shirt in front, and pulled his waistcoat over it. He might have been combing his hair for all the attention anyone paid to this, except myself. Then the two friends went out, and I bethought me of that epithet which Steve again had used to the Virginian as he clapped him on the shoulder. Clearly this wild country spoke a language other than mine. The word here was a term of endearment. Such was my conclusion. The drummers had finished their dealings with the proprietor, and they were gossiping together in a knot by the door as the Virginian passed out. See you later, old man. This was the American drummer, accosting his prospective bedfellow. Oh, yes, returned the bedfellow, and was gone. The American drummer winked triumphantly at his brethren. He's all right, he observed, jerking a thumb after the Virginian. He's easy. You've got to know him to work him, that's all. Unvatt is your point, inquired the German drummer. Point is, he'll not take any goods off you or me, but he's going to talk up the killer to any consumptive he runs across. I ain't done with him yet. Say he now addressed the proprietor. What's her name? Whose name? Then runs the Eaton House. Glen, Mrs. Glen. Ain't she new? Been settled here about a month. Husband's a freight conductor. Thought I'd not seen her before. She's a good looker. Hmm, yes, the kind of good looks I'd sooner see in another man's wife than mine. So that's the gate, is it? Hmm, well, it don't seem to be. She come here with that reputation, but there's been general disappointment. Then she ain't lack suitors any? Lacked? Are you acquainted with cowboys? And she disappointed him? Maybe she likes her husband? Hmm, well, how are you going to tell about them silent kind? Talking of conductors began the drummer, and we listened to his anecdote. It was successful with his audience, but when he launched fluently upon a second I strolled out. There was not enough wit in this narrator to relieve his indecency, and I felt shame at having been surprised into laughing with him. I left that company growing confidential over their leering stories and I sought the saloon. It was very quiet and orderly. There in quart bottles at a dollar I had never met before, but saving its price I found no complaint to make of it. Through folding doors I passed from the bar proper with its bottles and elk head, back to the hall with its various tables. I saw a man sliding cards from a case, and across the table from him another man laying counters down. Nearby was a second dealer pulling cards from the bottom of a pack, and opposite him a solemn old rustic, piling and changing coins upon the cards which lay already exposed. But now I heard a voice that drew my eyes to the far corner of the room. Why didn't you stay in Arizona? Harmless looking words as I write them down here, yet at the sound of them I notice the eyes of the others directed to that corner. That answer was given to them I did not hear, nor did I see who spoke. Then came another remark. Well, Arizona's no place for amateurs. This time the two card dealers that I stood near began to give a part of their attention to the group that sat in the corner. There was in me a desire to leave this room. So far my hours at Medicine Bow had seemed to glide beneath the sunshine of merriment of easygoing jocularity. This was suddenly gone, like the wind changing to north in the middle of a warm day. But I stayed, being ashamed to go. Five or six players sat over in the corner at a round table where counters were piled. Their eyes were close upon their cards, and one seemed to be dealing a card at a time to each, with pauses and bedding between. Eve was there and the Virginian. The others were new faces. No place for amateurs, repeated the voice, and now I saw that it was the dealers. There was in his countenance the same ugliness that his words conveyed. Who's that talking, said one of the men near me in a low voice? Trampas. What's he? Cow puncher, bronco buster, tinhorn, most anything. Who's he talking at? Think it's the black-headed guy he's talking at. That ain't supposed to be safe, is it? Guess we're all going to find out in a few minutes. Been trouble between them? They've not met before. Trampas don't enjoy losing to a stranger. Fellows from Arizona, you say? No, Virginia. She's recently back from having a look at Arizona, went down there last year for a change, works for the Sunk Creek outfit, and then the dealer lowered his voice still further and said something in the other man's ear, causing him to grin, after which both of them looked at me. There had been silence over in the corner, but now the man Trampas spoke again. And ten, said he, sliding out some chips from before him. Very strange it was to hear him, how he contrived to make those words a personal taunt. The Virginian was looking at his cards. He might have been deaf. And twenty, said the next player, easily. The next threw his cards down. It was now the Virginian's turn to bet or leave the game, and he did not speak at once. Or Trampas spoke. Your bet, you son of a—the Virginian's pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding it unnamed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawing a very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders to the man Trampas. When you call me that, smile. And he looked at Trampas across the table. Yes, the voice was gentle, but in my ears it seemed as if somewhere the bell of death was ringing, and silence, like a stroke, fell on the large room. All men present, as if by some magnetic current, had become aware of this crisis. In my ignorance and the total stoppage of my thoughts, I stood stock still, and noticed various people crouching or shifting their positions. Sit quiet, said the dealer, scornfully to the man near me. Can't you see he don't want to push trouble? He has handed Trampas the choice to back down or draw his steel. Then, with equal suddenness and ease, the room came out of its strangeness. The pieces and cards, the click of chips, the puff of tobacco, glasses lifted to drink, this level of smooth relaxation hinted no more plainly of what lay beneath than does the surface tell the depth of the sea. For Trampas had made his choice, and that choice was not to draw his steel. If it was knowledge that he sought, he had found it, and no mistake. We heard no further reference to what he had been pleased to style, amateurs, in no company with the blackheaded man who had visited Arizona berated a novice at the cool art of self-preservation. One doubt remained. What kind of a man was Trampas? A public back down is an unfinished thing, for some natures at least. I looked at his face and thought it sullen but tricky rather than courageous. Something had been added to my knowledge also. Once again I had heard, applied to the Virginian, that epithet which Steve so freely used, the same words identical to the letter, but this time they had produced a pistol. When you call me that, smile. So I perceived a new example of the old truth, that the letter means nothing until the spirit gives it life. End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of The Virginian. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Virginian by Owen Wister. Chapter 3 Steve Treats. It was for several minutes, I suppose, that I stood drawing these silent morals. No man occupied himself with me. Quiet voices and games of chance and glasses lifted to drink continued to be the peaceful order of the night. And into my thoughts broke the voice of that card-dealer who had already spoken so sagely. He also took his turn at moralizing. What did I tell you? He remarked to the man for whom he continued to deal and who continued to lose money to him. Tell me when. Didn't I tell you he'd not shoot? The dealer pursued with complacence. You got ready to dodge. You had no call to be concerned. He's not the kind a man need feel anxious about. The player looked over at the Virginian doubtfully. Well, he said, I don't know what you folks call a dangerous man. Not him, exclaimed the dealer with admiration. He's a brave man. That's different. The player seemed to follow this reasoning no better than I did. It's not a brave man that's dangerous, continued the dealer. It's the cowards that scare me. He paused that this might sink home. Fella came in here last Tuesday, he went on. He got into some misunderstanding about the drinks. Well, sir, before we could put him out of business, he'd hurt two perfectly innocent onlookers. They'd know more to do with it than you have, the dealer explained to me. Were they badly hurt, I asked. One of them was. He's died since. What became of the man? Why we put him out of business, I told you. He died that night. But there was no occasion for any of it. And that's why I never like to be around where there's a coward. You can't tell. He'll always go to shooting before it's necessary. And there's no security who he'll hit. But a man like that blackheaded guy is, the dealer indicated the Virginian, need never worry you. And there's another point where there's no need to worry about him. It'd be too late. These good words ended the moralizing of the dealer. He had given us a piece of his mind. He now gave the whole of it to dealing cards. I loitered here and there, neither welcome nor unwelcome at present, watching the cowboys at their play. Saving Trampas, there was scarce a face among them that had not in it something very likeable. Here were lusty horsemen ridden from the heat of the sun and the wet of the storm to divert themselves a while. Those untamed sat here for an idle moment, spending easily its hard-earned wages. City saloons rose into my vision, and I instantly preferred this rocky mountain place. More of death it undoubtedly saw, but less of vice than did its New York equivalents. And death is a thing much cleaner than vice. Moreover, it was by no means vice that was written upon these wild and manly faces. Even where baseness was visible, baseness was not uppermost. Daring, laughter, endurance, these were what I saw upon the countenances of the cowboys, and this very first day of my knowledge of them marks a date with me. For something about them and the idea of them smote my American heart, and I have never forgotten it nor ever shall as long as I live. In their flesh our natural passions ran tumultuous, but often in their spirit sat hidden a true nobility, and often beneath its unexpected shining their figures took on heroic stature. The dealer had styled the Virginian a black-headed guy. This did well enough as an unflattered portrait. Judge Henry's trustworthy man, with whom I was to drive 263 miles, certainly had a very black head of hair. It was the first thing to notice now, if one glanced generally at the table where he sat at cards. But the eye came back to him, drawn by that inexpressible something which had led the dealer to speak so much at length about him. Still, black-headed guy justly fits him and his next performance. He had made his plan for this like a true and, I must say, inspired devil, and now the highly appreciative town of Medicine Bow was to be treated to a manifestation of genius. He sat playing his stud poker. After a decent period of losing and winning, which gave Trampas all proper time for a change of luck and a repairing of his fortunes, he looked at Steve and said amably, How does bed strike you? I was beside their table, learning gradually that stud poker has in it more of what I will call red pepper than has our eastern game. The Virginian followed his own question. Bed strikes me, he stated. Steve feigned indifference. He was far more deeply absorbed in his bet and the American drummer than he was in this game, but he chose to take out a fat, florid, gold watch, consult it elaborately and remark, It's only eleven. You forget I'm from the country, said the black-headed guy. The chickens have been roosting a right smart while. His sunny southern accent was again strong. In that brief passage with Trampas it had been almost wholly absent, but different moods of the spirit bring different qualities of utterance, where a man comes by these naturally. The Virginian cashed in his checks. A while ago, said Steve, you had won three months' salary. I'm still twenty dollars to the good, said the Virginian. That's better than breaking a leg. Again in some voiceless, masonic way, most people in that saloon had become aware that something was in process of happening. Several left their games and came to the front by the bar. If he ain't in bed yet, mused the Virginian. I'll find out, said I, and I hurried across to the dim sleeping room, happy to have a part in this. They were all in bed, and in some beds, too, were sleeping. How they could do it, but in those days I was fastidious. The American had come in recently and was still awake. Thought you were to sleep at the store, said he. So then I invented a little lie and explained that I was in search of the Virginian. Better search the dives, said he. These cowboys don't get to town often. At this point I stumbled sharply over something. It's my box of consumption killer, explained the drummer. Well I hope that man will stay out all night. Bed narrow, I inquired. For to it is, and the pillows are mean, takes both before you feel anything under your head. He yawned and I wished him pleasant dreams. At my news the Virginian left the bar at once and crossed to the sleeping room. Steve and I followed softly, and behind us several more strung out in an expectant line. What is this going to be, they inquired curiously of each other. And upon learning the great novelty of the event they clustered with silence intense outside the door where the Virginian had gone in. We heard the voice of the drummer, cautioning his bedfellow. Don't trip over the killer, he was saying. The Prince of Wales barked his shin just now. It seemed my English clothes had earned me this title. The boots of the Virginian were next heard to drop. Can you make out what he's at? whispered Steve. He was plainly undressing. The rip of swift unbuttoning told us that the black-headed guy must now be removing his overalls. Why thank you, no, he was replying to a question of the drummer. Outsider ends all one to me. And if you just as soon take the wall, why certainly. There was a sound of bedclothes and creaking. This hyapilla needs a southern climate, was the Virginian's next observation. Many listeners had now gathered at the door. The dealer and the player were both here, the storekeeper was present, and I recognized the agent of the Union Pacific Railroad among the crowd. We made a large company, and I felt that trembling sensation, which is common when the cap of a camera is about to be removed upon a group. I should think, said the drummer's voice, that you'd feel your knife and gun clean through that pillow. I do, responded the Virginian. I should think you'd put them on a chair and be comfortable. I'd be uncomfortable then. Used to the feel of them, I suppose. That's it. Used to the feel of them. I would miss them, and that would make me wakeful. Well, good night. Good night. If I get to talking and tossing or what not, you'll understand you're to, yes, I'll wake you. No, don't you, for God's sake. Not? Don't you touch me? What'll I do? Roll away, quick to your side. It don't last but a minute. The Virginian spoke with a reassuring drawl. Upon this there fell a brief silence, and I heard the drummer clear his throat once or twice. It's merely the nightmare, I suppose, he said, after a throat clearing. Lord, yes, that's all, and don't happen twice a year. Was you thinking it was fits? Oh, no, I just wanted to know. I've been told before that it was not safe for a person to be waked suddenly that way out of a nightmare. Yes, I've heard that, too, but it never harms me any. I didn't want you to run risks. Me? Oh, it'll be all right now that you know how it is. The Virginian's drawl was full of assurance. There was a second pause, after which the drummer said, Tell me again how it is. The Virginian answered very drowsily. Oh, just don't let your arm or your leg touch me if I go to jumpin' around. I'm dreamin' of Indians when I do that, and if anything touches me then, I'm liable to grab my knife right in my sleep. Oh, I understand, said the drummer, clearing his throat. Yes. Steve was whispering delighted oaths to himself, and in his joy, applying to the Virginian one unprintable name after another. We listened again, but now no further words came. Listening very hard, I could half make out the progress of a heavy breathing and a restless turning I could clearly detect. This was the wretched drummer. He was waiting, but he did not wait long. Again there was a light creak, and after it a light step. He was not even going to put his boots on in the fatal neighborhood of the dreamer. By a happy thought, Medicine Bow formed into two lines, making an avenue from the door. And then the commercial traveler forgot his consumption killer. He fell heavily over it. Immediately from the bed the Virginian gave forth a dreadful howl. And then everything happened at once, and how shall mere words narrate it? The door burst open, and out flew the commercial traveler in his stockings. One hand held a lump of code and trousers with suspenders dangling. His boots were clutched in the other. The sight of us stopped his flight short. He gazed, the boots fell from his hand, and at his profane explosion Medicine Bow set up a united, unearthly noise and began to play Virginia real with him. The other occupants of the beds had already sprung out of them, clothed chiefly with their pistols and ready for war. What is it? They demanded. What is it? Why, I reckon, it's drinks on Steve, said the Virginian from his bed, and he gave the first broad grin that I had seen from him. I'll set him up all night, Steve shouted, as the reel went on regardless. The drummer was bawling to be allowed to put at least his boots on. This way, pard, was the answer, and another man whirled him round. This way, Bow, they called to him. This way, bud, and he was passed like a shuttlecock down the line. Suddenly the leaders bounded into the sleeping room. Feed the machine, they said, feeder, and, seizing the German drummer who sold jewelry, they flung him into the trough of the reel. I saw him go bouncing like an ear of corn to be shelled, and the dance engulfed him. I saw a Jew sent rattling after him, and next they threw in the railroad employee and the other Jew, and while I stood mesmerized, my own feet left the earth. I shot from the room and sped like a bobbing cork into this mill-race, whirling my turn in the wake of the others amid cries of, Here comes the Prince of Wales! There was soon not much English left about my raiment. They were now shouting for music. Medicine Bow swept in like a cloud of dust to where a fiddler sat playing in a hall, and gathering up fiddler and dancers swept out again, a larger Medicine Bow, growing all the while. Steve offered us the freedom of the house everywhere. He implored us to call for whatever pleased us, and as many times as we should please. He ordered the town to be searched for more citizens to come and help him pay his bet. But changing his mind, kegs and bottles were now carried along with us. He had found three fiddlers, and these played busily for us, and thus we set out to visit all cabins and houses where people might still, by some miracle, be asleep. The first man put out his head to decline, but such a possibility had been foreseen by the proprietor of the store. This seemingly respectable man now came dragging some sort of apparatus from his place, helped by the Virginian. The cowboys cheered, for they knew what this was. The man in his window likewise recognized it, and uttering a groan came immediately out and joined us. What it was, I also learned in a few minutes. For we found a house where the people made no sign at either our fiddlers or our knocking, and then the infernal machine was set to work. Its parts seemed to be no more than an empty keg and a plank. Some citizen informed me that I should soon have a new idea of noise, and I nerved myself for something severe in the way of gunpowder. But the Virginian and the proprietor now sat on the ground holding the keg braced, and two others got down, apparently, to play seesaw over the top of it with the plank. But the keg and plank had been rubbed with rosin, and they drew the plank back and forth over the keg. Do you know the sound made in a narrow street by a dray loaded with strips of iron? That noise is a lullaby compared with the staggering, blinding bellow which rose from the keg. If you were to try it in your native town, you would not merely be arrested, you would be hanged, and everybody would be glad, and the clergymen would not bury you. My head, my teeth, the whole system of my bones leaped and shattered at the din, and out of the house, like drops squirted from a lemon, came a man and his wife. No time was given them. They were swept along with the rest, and having been routed from their own bed, they now became most furious in assailing the remaining homes of Medicine Bow. Everybody was to come out. Many were now riding horses at top speed out into the plains and back, while the procession of the plank and keg continued its work and the fiddlers played incessantly. Suddenly there was a quiet. I did not see who brought the message, but the word ran among us that there was a woman, the engineer's woman down by the water tank, very sick. The doctor had been to see her from Laramie. Everybody liked the engineer. Plank and keg were heard no more. The horsemen found it out and restrained their gambles. Medicine Bow went gradually home. I saw doors shutting and lights go out. I saw a late few reassemble at the card tables, and the drummers gathered themselves together for sleep. The proprietor of the store, you could not see a more respectable-looking person, hoped that I would be comfortable on the quilts. And I heard Steve urging the Virginian to take one more glass. We've not met for so long, he said. But the Virginian, the black-headed guy who had set all this nonsense going, said no to Steve. I have got to stay responsible, was his excuse to his friend, and the friend looked at me. Therefore I surmised that the judge's trustworthy man found me an embarrassment to his holiday. But if he did, he never showed it to me. He had been sent to meet a stranger and drive him to Sunk Creek in safety, and this charge he would allow no temptation to imperil. He nodded good night to me. If there's anything I can do for you, you'll tell me. I thanked him. What a pleasant evening, I added. I'm glad you found it so. Again his manner put a bar to my approaches. Even though I had seen him wildly desporting himself, those were matters which he chose not to discuss with me. Medicine Bow was quiet as I went my way to my quilts, so still that through the air the deep whistles of the freight trains came from below the horizon across great miles of silence. I passed Cowboys, whom half an hour before I had seen prancing and roaring now rolled in their blankets beneath the open and shining night. What world am I in, I said aloud. Does this same planet hold Fifth Avenue? And I went to sleep pondering over my native land. End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of The Virginian Morning had been for some while a stir in Medicine Bow before I left my quilts. The new day and its doings began around me in the store, chiefly at the grocery counter. Dry goods were not in great request. The early rising Cowboys were off again to their work, and those to whom their night's holiday had left any dollars were spending these for tobacco or cartridges or canned provisions for the journey to their distant camps. Sardines were called for, and potted chicken and deviled ham, a sophisticated nourishment at first sight for these sons of the sagebrush. The portable, ready-made food plays of necessity a great part in the opening of a new country. These picnic pots and cans were the first of her trophies that civilization dropped upon Wyoming's virgin soil. The Cowboy is now gone to worlds invisible. The wind has blown away the white ashes of his campfires, but the empty sardine box lies rusting over the face of the western earth. So through my eyes, half closed, I watched the sail of these tins, and grew familiar with the ham's inevitable trademark, that label with the devil and his horns and hooves and tail very pronounced, all colored a sultry, prodigious scarlet. And when each horseman had made his purchase, he would trail his spurs over the floor, and presently the sound of his horse's hooves would be the last of him. Through my dozing attention came various fragments of talk and sometimes useful bits of knowledge. For instance, I learned the true value of tomatoes in this country. One fellow was buying two cans of them. "'Metal Creek dry already?' commented the proprietor. "'Been dry ten days,' the young cowboy informed him, and it appeared that along the road he was going, water would not be reached much before sundown, because this meadow creek had ceased to run. His tomatoes were for drink, and thus they have refreshed me many times since.' "'No beer?' suggested the proprietor. The boy made a shuttering face. "'Don't say its name to me,' he exclaimed. I couldn't hold my breakfast down.' He rang his silver money upon the counter. "'I've swore off for three months,' he stated. "'I'm going to be as pure as the snow,' and away he went jingling out of the door to ride seventy-five miles, three more months of hard, unsheltered work, and he would ride into town again, with his adolescent blood crying aloud for its own. "'I'm obliged,' said a new voice, rousing me from a new dose. She's easier this morning since the medicine.' This was the engineer, whose sick wife had brought a hush over medicine-bow's rioting. "'I'll give her them flowers soon as she wakes,' he added. "'Flowers,' repeated the proprietor. "'You didn't leave that bunch at our door? Wish I'd thought to do it.' She likes to see flowers,' said the engineer, and he walked out slowly with his thanks unachieved. He returned at once with the Virginian, for in the band of the Virginian's hat were two or three blossoms. "'It don't need mentioning,' the Southerner was saying, embarrassed by any expression of thanks. "'If we had known last night, you didn't disturb her any,' broke in the engineer. "'She's easier this morning. I'll tell her about them flowers.' "'Why, it don't need mentioning,' the Virginian again protested, almost crossly. The little things looked kind of fresh, and I just picked them. His eye now fell upon me, where I lay upon the counter. "'I reckon breakfast will be getting through,' he remarked. I was soon at the wash trough. It was only half past six, but many had been before me. One glance at the roller-towel told me that. I was afraid to ask the landlady for a clean one, and so I found a fresh handkerchief and accomplished a sparing toilet. In the midst of this the drummers joined me, one by one, and they used the degraded towel without hesitation. In a way they had the best of me. Filth was nothing to them. The latest risers in Medicine Bow we sat at breakfast together, and they assayed some light familiarities with the landlady. But these experiments were failures. Her eyes did not see, nor did her ears hear them. She brought the coffee and the bacon with a sedateness that propriety itself could scarce have surpassed. Yet impropriety lurked noiselessly all over her. You could not have specified how. It was interblended with her sum total. Silence was her apparent habit and her weapon. But the American drummer found that she could speak to the point when need came for this. During the meal he had praised her golden hair. It was golden indeed and worth a high compliment. But his kind displeased her. She had let it pass, however, with no more than a cool stare. But on taking his leave when he came to pay for the meal he pushed it too far. Pity, this must be our last, he said, and as it brought no answer. Ever travel, he inquired. Where I go there is room for a pair of us. When you'd better find another jackass, she replied quietly. I was glad that I had not asked for a clean towel. From the commercial travelers I now separated myself and wandered alone in pleasurable aimlessness. It was seven o'clock. Medicine bows stood voiceless and unpeopled. The cowboys had melted away. The inhabitants were indoors, pursuing the business or the idleness of the forenoon. Visible motion there was none. No shell upon the dry sands could lie more lifeless than medicine bow. Looking in at the store I saw the proprietor sitting with his pipe extinct. Looking in at the saloon I saw the dealer dealing dumbly to himself. Up in the sky there was not a cloud nor a bird, and on the earth the lightest straw lay becalmed. Once I saw the Virginian at an open door where the golden-haired landlady stood talking with him. Sometimes I strolled in the town, and sometimes out on the plain I lay down with my daydreams in the sagebrush. Pale herds of antelope were in the distance, and nearby the demure prairie dog sat up and scrutinized me. Steve, Trampas, the riot of horsemen, my lost trunk, Uncle Huey with his abortive brides, all things merged in my thoughts in a huge, delicious indifference. It was like swimming slowly at random in an ocean that was smooth and neither too cool nor too warm. And before I knew it, five lazy, imperceptible hours had gone thus. There was the Union Pacific train, coming as if from shores forgotten. Its approach was silent and long drawn out. I easily reached town in the platform before it had finished watering at the tank. It moved up, made a short halt, I saw my trunk come out of it, and then it moved away silently as it had come, smoking and dwindling into distance unknown. Inside my trunk was one other, tied extravagantly with white ribbon. The fluttering bows caught my attention, and now I suddenly saw a perfectly new sight. The Virginian was further down the platform, doubled up with laughing. It was good to know that with sufficient cause he could laugh like this. A smile had thus far been his limit of external mirth. Rice now flew against my hat, and hissing gusts of rice spouted on the platform. All the men left in medicine bow appeared like magic, and more rice choked the atmosphere. Through the general clamor, a cracked voice said, Don't hit her in the eye, boys! An Uncle Huey rushed proudly by me with an actual wife on his arm. She could easily have been his granddaughter. They got at once into a vehicle. The trunk was lifted in behind, and amid cheers, rice, shoes, and broad felicitations, the pair drove out of town. Uncle Huey shrieking to the horses, and the bride waving unabashed adieu. The word had come over the wires from Laramie. Uncle Huey has made it this time. Expect him on today's number two. And Medicine Bow had expected him. Many words arose on the departure of the new married couple. Who's she? What's he got for her? Got a goldmine up Bear Creek. And after comment and prophecy, Medicine Bow returned to its dinner. This meal was my last here for a long while. The Virginian's responsibility now returned. Duty drove the judge's trustworthy man to take care of me again. He had not once sought my society of his own accord. His distaste for what he supposed me to be—I don't exactly know what this was—remained unshaken. I have thought that matters of dress and speech should not carry with them so much mistrust in our democracy. Thieves are presumed innocent until proved guilty, but a starched collar is condemned at once. Sick civility and obligingness I certainly did receive from the Virginian, only not a word of fellowship. He harnessed the horses, got my trunk, and gave me some advice about taking provisions for our journey, something more palatable than what food we should find along the road. It was well thought of, and I bought quite a parcel of dainties, feeling that he would despise both them and me, and thus I took my seat beside him, wondering what we should manage to talk about for 263 miles. Farewell in those days was not said in cattle land. Acquaintances watched our departure with a nod or with nothing, and the nearest approach to goodbye was the proprietor's so long, but I caught sight of one farewell given without words. As we drove by the eating-house, the shade of a side window was raised, and the landlady looked her last upon the Virginian. Her lips were faintly parted, and no woman's eyes ever said more plainly, I am one of your possessions. She had forgotten that it might be seen. Her glance caught mine, and she backed into the dimness of the room. But look she may have received from him, if he gave her any at this too-public moment, I could not tell. His eyes seemed to be upon the horses, and he drove with the same mastering ease that had roped the wild pony yesterday. We passed the ramparts of medicine bow, thick heaps and fringes of tin cans, and shelving mounds of bottles cast out of the saloons. The sun struck these at a hundred glittering points, and in a moment we were in the clean plains with the prairie dogs and the pale herds of Antelope. The great still air bathed us, pure as water and strong as wine. The sunlight flooded the world, and shining upon the breast of the Virginian's flannel shirt lay a long, gold thread of hair. The noisy American drummer had met defeat, but this silent freelance had been easily victorious. It must have been five miles that we traveled in silence, losing and seeing the horizon among the ceaseless waves of the earth. Then I looked back, and there was medicine bow, seemingly a stone's throw behind us. It was a full half-hour before I looked back again, and there, sure enough, was always medicine bow—a size or two smaller, I will admit, but visible in every feature, like something seen through the wrong end of a field glass. The eastbound express was approaching the town, and I noticed the white steam from its whistle, but when the sound reached us the train had almost stopped, and in reply to my comment upon this the Virginian deigned to remark that it was more so in Arizona. A man come to Arizona, he said, with one of them telescopes to study the heavenly bodies. He was a Yankee, sir, and a right smart one, too. And one night we was watching for some little old fallen stars that he said was due, and I saw some lights moving along across the mesa pretty lively, and I sang out. But he told me it was just the train, and I told him I didn't know you could see the cures that plain from his place. You can see them, he said to me, but it is last night's cures you're looking at. At this point the Virginian spoke severely to one of the horses. Of course, he then resumed to me, that Yankee man did not mean quite all he said. You buck, he again broke off suddenly to the horse. Arizona, sir, he continued, it certainly has a most deceiving atmosphere. Another man told me he had seen a lady close one eye at him when he was two minutes' hard run from her. This time the Virginian gave buck the whip. What effect, I inquired with a gravity equal to his own, does this extraordinary foreshortening have upon a quart of whiskey? When it's outside you, sir, no distance looks too far to go to it. He glanced at me with an eye that held more confidence than hitherto he had been able to feel in me. I had made one step in his approval, but I had many yet to go. This day he preferred his own thoughts to my conversation, and so he did all the days of this first journey, while I should have greatly preferred his conversation to my thoughts. He dismissed some attempts that I made upon the subject of Uncle Huey, so that I had not the courage to touch upon Trampas, and that chill, brief collision which might have struck the spark of death. Trampas, I had forgotten him till this silent drive I was beginning. I wondered if I should ever see him, or Steve, or any of those people again, and this wonder I expressed aloud. There's no tellin' in this country, said the Virginian, folks come easy, and they go easy. In settled places, like back in the States, even a poor man mostly has a home. Don't care if it's only a barrel on a lot, the fellow will keep frequentin' that lot, and if you want him, you can find him. But out here, in the sagebrush, a man's home is apt to be a saddle blanket. First thing you know, he has moved it to Texas. You have done some moving yourself, I suggested. But this word closed his mouth. I have had a look at the country, he said, and we were silent again. Let me, however, tell you here that he had set out for a look at the country at the age of fourteen, and that by his present age of twenty-four he had seen Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Everywhere he had taken care of himself and survived, nor had his strong heart yet waked up to any hunger for a home. Let me also tell you that he was one of thousands drifting and living thus, but, as you shall learn, one in a thousand. Medicine bowed and not forever remain in sight. When next I thought of it and looked behind, nothing was there but the road we had come. It lay like a ship's wake across the huge ground swell of the earth. We were swallowed in a vast solitude. A little while before sunset a cabin came in view, and here we passed our first night. Two young men lived here, tending their cattle. They were fond of animals. By the stable a chain coyote rushed nervously in a circle or sat on its haunches and snapped at gifts of food ungraciously. A tame young elk walked in and out of the cabin door, and during supper it tried to push me off my chair. A half tame mountain sheep practiced jumping from the ground to the roof. The cabin was papered with posters of a circus, and skins of bear and silver fox lay upon the floor. Until nine o'clock one man talked to the Virginian, and one played gaily upon a concertina, and then we all went to bed. The air was like December, but in my blankets and a buffalo robe I kept warm and luxuriated in the rocky mountain's silence. Going to wash before breakfast at sunrise I found needles of ice in a pale. Yet it was hard to remember that this quiet, open, splendid wilderness, with not a peak in sight just here, was six thousand feet high. And when breakfast was over there was no December left, and by the time the Virginian and I were ten miles upon our way it was June. But always every breath that I breathed was pure as water and strong as wine. We never passed a human being this day. Some wild cattle rushed up to us and away from us. Antelopes stared at us from a hundred yards. Coyotes ran skulking through the sagebrush to watch us from a hill. At our noon meal we killed a rattlesnake and shot some young sage chickens, which were good at supper, roasted at our campfire. By half past eight we were asleep beneath the stars, and by half past four I was drinking coffee and shivering. The horse, Buck, was hard to catch this second morning. Whether some hills that we were now in had excited him, or whether the better water up here had caused an effervescence in his spirits, I cannot say. But I was as hot as July by the time we had him safe in harness, or rather unsafe in harness. For Buck, in the mysterious language of horses, now taught wickedness to his side-partner. And about eleven o'clock they laid their evil heads together and decided to break our necks. We were passing, I have said, through a range of demi-mountains. It was a little country where trees grew, water ran, and the plains were shut out for a while. The road had steep places in it, and places here and there where you could fall off and go bounding to the bottom among stones. But Buck, for some reason, did not think these opportunities good enough for him. He selected a more theatrical moment. He emerged from a narrow canyon suddenly upon five hundred cattle and some cowboys branding calves by a fire in a corral. It was a sight that Buck knew by heart. He instantly treated it like an appalling phenomenon. I saw him kick seven ways. I saw muggins kick five ways. Our furious motions snapped my spine like a whip. I grasped the seat. I gave a forlorn jingle. It was the break. Don't jump, commanded the trustworthy man. No, I said, as my hat flew off. Help was too far away to do anything for us. We passed scatholis through a part of the cattle I saw their horns and backs go by. Some earth crumbled and we plunged downward into water rocking among stones and upward again through some more crumbling earth. I heard a crash and saw my trunk landing in the stream. She's safer there, said the trustworthy man. True, I said, we'll go back for, said he, with his eyes on the horses and his foot on the crippled break. The dry gully was coming and no room to turn. The farther side of it was terraced with rock. We should simply fall backward if we did not fall forward first. He steered the horses straight over and just at the bottom swung them with astonishing skill to the right along the hard-baked mud. They took us along the bed up to the head of the gully and threw a thicket of quaking asps. The light trees bent beneath our charge and bastonadoed the wagon as it went over them. But their branches enmeshed the horses' legs and we came to a harmless standstill among a bower of leaves. I looked at the trustworthy man and smiled vaguely. He considered me for a moment. I reckon, said he, you're feeling about halfway between, oh, Lord, and thank God. That's quite it, said I, as he got down on the ground. Nothing's broke, said he, after a searching examination, and he indulged in a true Virginian expletive. Gentlemen hush, he murmured gently, looking at me with his grave eyes. One time I got pretty near scared. You, Buck, he continued, some folks would beat you now till you'd be uncertain whether you was a horse or a railroad accident. I'd do it myself, only it wouldn't cure you. I now told him that I supposed he had saved both our lives. But he detested words of direct praise. He made some grumbling rejoinder and led the horses out of the thicket. Buck, he explained to me, was a good horse, and so was Muggins. Both of them generally meant well, and that was the judge's reason for sending them to meet me. But these Broncos had their off days. Off days might not come very often, but when the humor seized a Bronco, he had to have his spree. Buck would now behave himself as a horse should for probably two months. They are just like humans, the Virginian concluded. Several cowboys arrived on a gallop to find how many pieces of us were left. We returned down the hill, and when we reached my trunk, it was surprising to see the distance that our runaway had covered. My hat was also found, and we continued on our way. Buck and Muggins were patterns of discretion through the rest of the mountains. I thought, when we camped this night, that it was strange Buck should be again allowed to graze at large, instead of being tied to a rope while we slept. But this was my ignorance. With the hard work that he was gallantly doing, the horse needed more pasture than a rope's length would permit him to find. Therefore he went free, and in the morning gave us but little trouble in catching him. We crossed a river in the forenoon, and far to the north of us we saw the bow-leg mountains, pale in the bright sun. Sunk creek flowed from their western side, and our 263 miles began to grow a small thing in my eyes. Buck and Muggins, I think, knew perfectly that tomorrow would see them home. They recognized this region, and once they turned off at a fork in the road. The Virginian pulled them back rather sharply. Want to go back to Balams? He inquired of them. I thought you had more sense. I asked, who was Balam? A maltreater of Haas's, replied the cow-puncher. His ranch is on Butte Creek over Yanda, and he pointed to where the diverging road melted into space. The judge bought Buck and Muggins from him in the spring. So he maltreats horses, I repeated. That's the word all through this country, a man that will do what they claim Balam does to a Haas when he's mad ain't fit to be called human. The Virginian told me some particulars. Oh! I almost screamed at the horror of it, and again, oh! He'd have probably done that to Buck as soon as he stopped running away. If I caught a man doing that. We were interrupted by a sedate-looking traveler riding upon an equally sober horse. Mon and Taylor, said the Virginian, pulling up for gossip. Ain't you straight off your range pretty far? You're a nice one, replied Mr. Taylor, stopping his horse and smiling amably. Tell me something I don't know, retorted the Virginian. Hold up a man at cards and rob him, pursued Mr. Taylor. Oh! the news has got ahead of you. Trampas has been here explaining, has he? said the Virginian with a grin. Was that your victim's name? said Mr. Taylor facetiously. No, it wasn't him that brought the news. Say, what did you do, anyway? So that thing has got around, murmured the Virginian. Well, it wasn't worth such wide repotting. And he gave the simple facts to Taylor. While I sat wandering at the contagious powers of rumor, here, through this voiceless land, this desert, this vacuum, it had spread like a change of weather. Any news up your way? The Virginian concluded. Importance came into Mr. Taylor's countenance. Bear Creek is going to build a schoolhouse, said he. Goodness gracious, draw the Virginian. What's that for? Now, Mr. Taylor had been married for some years. To educate the offspring of Bear Creek, he answered with pride. Offspring of Bear Creek, the Virginian meditatively repeated. I don't remember noticing much offspring. There was some white-tailed deer and a right smart of jack rabbits. The Swintons have moved up from dry bone, said Mr. Taylor, always seriously. They found it no place for young children. And there's Uncle Carmody, with Six, and Ben Dow, and Westfall has become a family man. And Jim Westfall exclaimed the Virginian. Him, a family man? Well, if this here territory is going to get full of family men and empty a game, I believe I'll get married yourself, suggested Mr. Taylor. Me, I ain't near reach the marriageable age, no sir, but Uncle Huey has got there at last, you know. Uncle Huey, shouted Mr. Taylor. He had not heard this. Rumor is very capricious. Therefore, the Virginian told him and the family man rocked in his saddle. Build your schoolhouse, said the Virginian. Uncle Huey has qualified himself to subscribe to all such propositions. Got your eye on a school marm? End of chapter four. Chapter five of the Virginian. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Virginian by Owen Wister. Chapter five, enter the woman. We are taking steps, said Mr. Taylor. Bear Creek ain't going to be hasty about a school marm. Sure, assented the Virginian. The children wouldn't want you to hurry. But Mr. Taylor was, as I have indicated, a serious family man. The problem of educating his children could appear to him in no light except a sober one. Bear Creek, he said, don't want the experience they had over at Caleth. We must not hire an ignoramus. Sure, assented the Virginian again. Nor we don't want no Gadaway flirt, said Mr. Taylor. She must keep her eyes on the blackboard, said the Virginian gently. Well, we can wait till we get a guaranteed article, said Mr. Taylor. And that's what we're going to do. It can't be this year and it needn't to be. None of the kids is very old and the schoolhouse has got to be built. He now drew a letter from his pocket and looked at me. Are you acquainted with Miss Mary Stark Wood of Bennington, Vermont? He inquired. I was not acquainted with her at this time. She's one we are thinking of. She's a correspondent with Mrs. Bailam. Taylor handed me the letter. She wrote that to Mrs. Bailam and Mrs. Bailam said the best thing was for to let me see it and judge for myself. I'm taking it back to Mrs. Bailam. Maybe you can give me your opinion how it sizes up with the letters they write back east. The communication was mainly of a business kind but also personal and freely written. I do not think that its writer expected it to be exhibited as a document. The writer wished very much that she could see the west but she could not gratify this desire merely for pleasure or she would long ago have accepted the kind invitation to visit Mrs. Bailam's ranch. Teaching school was something she would like to do if she were fitted for it. Since the mills failed, the writer said, we have all gone to work and done a lot of things so that mother might keep on living in the old house. Yes, the salary would be a temptation but my dear, isn't Wyoming bad for the complexion? And could I sue them if mine got damaged? It is still admired. I could bring one male witness at least to prove that. Then the writer became business-like again. Even if she came to feel that she could leave home she did not at all know that she could teach school nor did she think it right to accept a position in which one had had no experience. I do love children, boys especially, she went on. My small nephew and I get on famously but imagine if a whole bench full of boys began asking me questions that I couldn't answer. What should I do? For one could not spank them all, you know. And mother says that I ought not to teach anybody spelling because I leave the you out of honor. All together it was a letter which I could assure Mr. Taylor sized up very well with the letters written in my part of the United States and it was signed your very sincere spencer, Molly Stark Wood. I never seen honor spelled with a you, said Mr. Taylor over whose not highly civilized head certain portions of the letter had lightly passed. I told him that some old fashioned people still wrote the word so. Either way would satisfy Bear Creek, said Mr. Taylor if she's otherwise up to requirements. The Virginian was now looking over the letter musingly and with awakened attention. Your very sincere spencer, he read aloud slowly. I guess that means she's 40, said Taylor. I reckon she is about 20, said the Virginian and again he fell to musing over the paper that he held. Her handwriting ain't like any I've saw pursued Mr. Taylor but Bear Creek would not object to that provided she knows arithmetic and George Washington and them kind of things. I expect she is not an awful sincere spencer surmised the Virginian still looking at the letter still holding it as if it were some token. Has any botanist set down what the seed of love is? Has it anywhere been set down in how many ways this seed may be sown? In what various vessels of gossamer it can float across wide spaces or upon what different soils it can fall and live unknown and bide its time for blooming? The Virginian handed back to Taylor the sheet of note paper where a girl had talked as the women he had known did not talk. If his eyes had ever seen such maidens there had been no meeting of eyes and if such maidens had ever spoken to him the speech was from an established distance but here was a free language altogether new to him. It proved however not alien to his understanding as it was alien to Mr. Taylor's. We drove onward a mile perhaps and then two. He had lately been full of words but now he barely answered me so that a silence fell upon both of us. It must have been all of 10 miles that we had driven when he spoke of his own accord. Your real spinster don't speak of her lot that easy, he remarked, and presently he quoted a phrase about the complexion. Could I sue them if mine got damaged? And he smiled over this to himself shaking his head. What would she be doing on Bear Creek? He next said, and finally, I reckon that witness will detain her in Vermont and her mother will keep living at the old house. Thus did the cow puncher deliver himself not knowing at all that the seed had floated across wide spaces and was biding its time in his heart. On the morrow we reached Sunk Creek. Judge Henry's welcome and his wife's would have obliterated any hardships that I had endured and I had endured none at all. For a while I saw little of the Virginian. He lapsed into his native way of addressing me occasionally as sir, a habit entirely repudiated by this land of equality. I was sorry. Our common peril during the runaway of Buck and Muggins had brought us to a familiarity that I hoped was destined to last. But I think that it would not have gone farther, save for a certain personage. I must call her a personage. And as I am indebted to her for gaining me a friend whose prejudice against me might never have been otherwise overcome, I shall tell you her little story and how her misadventures and her fate came to bring the Virginian and me to an appreciation of one another. Without her, it is likely I should also not have heard so much of the story of the school marm and how that lady at last came to bear Creek. End of chapter five.