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Authors: A. B. Guthrie Jr.
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maybe won't. Anyhow, a dead dog's no loss but to the man that owns him."
By grab, that was so, Evans thought. People argued a dog couldn't make the trip and everyone took that as a good reason, like they took other talk, until a man like Dick showed it didn't
hold water.
Summers went on, "Dogs'll tell the camp about Injuns just as quick, and maybe quicker, than they'll give us away. Me, I don't look for Injun trouble anyhow, except for beggin' and a little stealin'. Injuns ain't likely to light into a party as big as this one, not the Injuns we'll come up against."
Tadlock ran his hand along his jaw while the talk broke out again. After a little while he tapped on the plate. "I'm thinking more just of the bother of dogs," he said. "They're a nuisance. They'll slow up the train. They'll be underfoot in the mornings, and they'll get hurt and lost and cause delay, I'm afraid. At any rate, let's vote."
You couldn't be sure, by voices, which side had won, but after Tadlock had called for a show of hands and counted them careful, he said the motion had carried. He didn't push it further, though. He didn't say who was to do the killing and when. Evans figured he would have some business with the man who came to shoot Rock. The prospect troubled him. He liked things peaceful.
While he was thinking about it, Tadlock went on with the clection of a council and the naming of inspectors. It was a little to Evans' surprise that he found himself on both lists. The crowd elected him to the council, and Tadlock named him an inspector. When he had had time to reckon, though, it was natural enough. What Tadlock aimed at was to work everyone over to his side. By one thing and another, he figured to get the most of them in the same bed with him.
Well, anyhow, the business was about done. Evans looked it ound and saw that Brownie had ridden up on his mule, and then he glanced back to the stretch of prairie where the animals grazed and saw the mules and horses hobbled or pinned out and the oxen resting safe, and he knew, as he knew all along, that Brownie could be depended on.
His gaze came back to Brownie. The boy was sitting his mule quiet, his eyes fixed, on his young face an unhidden, troubled, hankering look, as if he stood alone and saw now and for the first time all it was a man might hope for. Before he turned his head, Evans knew what Brownie saw. It was the girl, Mercy McBee, with her sad, watching face and her red poke bonnet and the two little hills of her breasts showing against her linseywoolsey.
For a long minute Evans stared at her, and then back at his boy. They were about of an age, the only two, as luck would have it, who looked like seventeen. The look on Brownie's face was like the look on the man Mack's, when first he'd seen the girl. It was like it, and still far different, being gentle and young and unknowing, not thinking of bed alone and maybe not at all, but of tenderness and beauty and happiness, so much of it the heart flowed over.
Evans turned away. Damned if he wasn't building things in his mind, out of nothing, you might say, out of his own feelings of long ago. But good God! Scrub stock. Marry into scrub stock, and it was all right! Call Hank McBee pappy and Mrs. McBee ma and have 'em on your hands all your life and everything was fine. But they whipped you for fornication. Thirty-nine lashes.
Chapter Six
DICK SUMMERS thought lazily that these were different from mountain men. These couldn't enjoy life as it rolled by; they wanted to make something out of it, as if they could take it and shape it to their way if only they worked and figured hard enough. They didn't talk beaver and whisky and squaws or let themselves soak in the weather; they talked crops and water power and business and maybe didn't even notice the sun or the pale green of new leaves except as something along the way to whatever it was they wanted to be and to have. Later they might look
By grab, that was so, Evans thought. People argued a dog couldn't make the trip and everyone took that as a good reason, like they took other talk, until a man like Dick showed it didn't
hold water.
Summers went on, "Dogs'll tell the camp about Injuns just as quick, and maybe quicker, than they'll give us away. Me, I don't look for Injun trouble anyhow, except for beggin' and a little stealin'. Injuns ain't likely to light into a party as big as this one, not the Injuns we'll come up against."
Tadlock ran his hand along his jaw while the talk broke out again. After a little while he tapped on the plate. "I'm thinking more just of the bother of dogs," he said. "They're a nuisance. They'll slow up the train. They'll be underfoot in the mornings, and they'll get hurt and lost and cause delay, I'm afraid. At any rate, let's vote."
You couldn't be sure, by voices, which side had won, but after Tadlock had called for a show of hands and counted them careful, he said the motion had carried. He didn't push it further, though. He didn't say who was to do the killing and when. Evans figured he would have some business with the man who came to shoot Rock. The prospect troubled him. He liked things peaceful.
While he was thinking about it, Tadlock went on with the clection of a council and the naming of inspectors. It was a little to Evans' surprise that he found himself on both lists. The crowd elected him to the council, and Tadlock named him an inspector. When he had had time to reckon, though, it was natural enough. What Tadlock aimed at was to work everyone over to his side. By one thing and another, he figured to get the most of them in the same bed with him.
Well, anyhow, the business was about done. Evans looked it ound and saw that Brownie had ridden up on his mule, and then he glanced back to the stretch of prairie where the animals grazed and saw the mules and horses hobbled or pinned out and the oxen resting safe, and he knew, as he knew all along, that Brownie could be depended on.
His gaze came back to Brownie. The boy was sitting his mule quiet, his eyes fixed, on his young face an unhidden, troubled, hankering look, as if he stood alone and saw now and for the first time all it was a man might hope for. Before he turned his head, Evans knew what Brownie saw. It was the girl, Mercy McBee, with her sad, watching face and her red poke bonnet and the two little hills of her breasts showing against her linseywoolsey.
For a long minute Evans stared at her, and then back at his boy. They were about of an age, the only two, as luck would have it, who looked like seventeen. The look on Brownie's face was like the look on the man Mack's, when first he'd seen the girl. It was like it, and still far different, being gentle and young and unknowing, not thinking of bed alone and maybe not at all, but of tenderness and beauty and happiness, so much of it the heart flowed over.
Evans turned away. Damned if he wasn't building things in his mind, out of nothing, you might say, out of his own feelings of long ago. But good God! Scrub stock. Marry into scrub stock, and it was all right! Call Hank McBee pappy and Mrs. McBee ma and have 'em on your hands all your life and everything was fine. But they whipped you for fornication. Thirty-nine lashes.
Chapter Six
DICK SUMMERS thought lazily that these were different from mountain men. These couldn't enjoy life as it rolled by; they wanted to make something out of it, as if they could take it and shape it to their way if only they worked and figured hard enough. They didn't talk beaver and whisky and squaws or let themselves soak in the weather; they talked crops and water power and business and maybe didn't even notice the sun or the pale green of new leaves except as something along the way to whatever it was they wanted to be and to have. Later they might look
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