By this time three G.o.dless cow-punchers, crimson with suppressed emotions, were digging one another fiercely in the ribs.

"This here Joseph is a sheep-herding swine from the desert, smooth because he's been brung up among range animals, but mean because he's raised for a pet by Jacob, the champion stinker of the wild west."

At that Pete exploded, and had to retire in convulsions, while the other two infants reproached him for interruption.

"Smooth and mean is Joseph, a cream-laid young person like Pete, who's going to have black draft to heal his cough before morning. Joseph is all deportment and sad eyes, with a crossed-in-love droop. His brothers is mean so far as they knows how without reading newspapers, but even they can't stand Joseph. General and Mrs. Potiphar don't seem to like his perfume. When he's in jail he's steward, so that the other prisoners has dreams of grub but nary a meal till he goes.

"I dunno, but if I was a self-made man, I'd hate to have my autobiography wrote by my poor relations, or the backers I'd cheated and left on my trail to Fifth Avenue. Them brethren, the Potiphar outfit, and the jailbirds, is plumb full of grief that they ever seen this Joseph, and you'll notice that when he dies, the Egyptians don't subscribe for a monument. He's a city man, a financier, and the Lord is with him, watching his natural history, this being the first warning of the plagues of Egypt.

"Thar's only one man as can afford to know the Honorable Joseph. Pharaoh has an ax, so any gent caught with more'n four aces, is apt to fade away out of Egypt. Yes, he can afford to know Joseph, and they're birds of a feather all right.

"Now horses is so scarce that up to now there ain't one in the Bible, until Pharaoh loans Joseph his second-best chariot, and gives him a sure fine sleigh-robe to go buggy riding.

"And Jews is scarce. This Pharaoh is the first king to get a Jew financier to do his graft.

"It ain't the king who pays for that corner in wheat, and you can bet your socks it's not Joseph. It's the bleeding, sweating, hungry Egyptians who pays the wheat trust which makes Pharaoh and Joseph multimillionaires. So there on the high lonesome is the Jew and His Majesty, with no club of millionaires to tell them they done right, and n.o.body in all Egypt left to swindle.

"Old Pharaoh's in a museum now, Joseph is located at Chicago, Egypt is sand-rock desert; but G.o.d's in His Heaven, and judging by the way us human beings behave, them golden pavements ain't got crowded yet.

"Oh, Lord, Thou knowest that we who ride herd in Thy pastures, haven't got much to be selfish about on earth. We cayn't make dollars out of Thy golden sunshine, or currency bills out of Thy silver streams, but all the same, deliver us from selfishness, and lead us not into the temptations of a large account at the bank, 'cause we're only kids when we gets down to civilization, and all our ways is muddy so soon as we quit Thy gra.s.s."

The cow-boys slipped away, no longer hilarious, perhaps even a little awed, for Jesse's quaint observances are spray from a sea, sparkling on the surface, but in its depths profound. And we two women waited, the widow longing for news about her son, while I was concerned for my man.

Hard, bitter, sinister the sermon, humble and reverent the appeal for help, and now when the men had left us, Jesse remained in prayer. Almost with tears he pleaded for widows and fatherless children, until my servant's austere face became quite gentle, and she was able to hobble off to her bed feeling that all was well.

The night being cold, Jesse had his cigar beside the stove, while I sat on the low stool so that the fumes might rise above my unworthy head.

"The widow believes," I said, "that her boy will get rich in the city."

"I got Billy a job."

Jesse's face looked very grave.

"At a grocery," he added.

I sighed for the romantic lad, condemned to an ap.r.o.n behind the counter.

"And the young hawk flew off."

"I'm glad!"

"Ye see it's this way, Kate. He's shying heaps at Ashcroft, the first town he ever seen, where there's a bit of sidewalk, electric lights, and waitresses. I had to kiss the fluffy one to show him they don't bite.

"Then thar's the railroad. By that time he's getting worldly, all 'you-can't-fool-me,' and 'not-half-so-slick-as-our-ranch' until we comes to his first tunnel, and he jumps right out of his skin. After that he wants everybody to know he's a cow-boy wild and lone, despising the tenderfoot pa.s.sengers right through the two hundred and fifty miles to Vancouver. At the depot he points one ear at the liners in port, and the other ear at them sky-sc.r.a.ping, six-story business blocks up street. He feels he'd ought to play wolf, shoot up saloons, and paint the town, but he's getting scary as cats because there's too many people all at once.

He loses count, thinks there's three horns goes to one steer, and wants to hold my hand. That's when a motorcar snorts in his ear; a street-car comes at him ears back, teeth bare, and tail a-waving; and a lady axes him what time the twelve o'clock train leaves. Then he hears a band play, and it's too much--he just stampedes for the woods. When I rounds him up next afternoon, he's just ate a candy store, he's gorged to the eyes, and trying to make room for ice-cream. The next two days Billy's close-herded, and fed high to give his mind a rest. He seen the sea, pawed the wet of it, snuffed the big smell--yes, and the boy near crying. Town men who can't smell, or see, or hear, or feel with their hands, would have some trouble understanding what the sea means to a sort of child like that.

"He's willing to start work as a millionaire, but don't feel no holy vocation for groceries. So in the end he runs away, out of that frying-pan into the--wall, the rest ain't clearly known, although the police has a clue. It seems my wolf cub leads some innocent yearling astray down by the harbor, said victim being the crimp from a sailors'

boarding-house. To prove he's fierce, Billy has a skinful of mixed drinks, and this stranger is kind enough to take him to see a beautiful English bark which is turning loose for Cape Horn. Seems the ship takes a notion to Billy, and the captain politely axes him to work. He's been shanghaied."

"This will kill his mother."

"Not if she thinks her son's another Joseph getting rich."

"Oh, it's too awful!"

"Wall, maybe I'm a fool, Kate, but seems to me that this young person had to be weaned from running after a woman, before he'd any chance to be a man."

CHAPTER XIII

NATIVITY

_Kate's Narrative_

Jesse allowed that the upper forest does look "sort of wolfy." He would post relays of ponies along the outward trail, so that he and McGee could ride the eighty miles back in a single march. If the doctor survived that, he would be here in forty-eight hours, perhaps in time.

I made Jesse take his revolver, yes, loaded it myself, and he promised a signal shot from the rim-rock to give me the earliest news of his return. He put out the light, he kissed me good-by, and was gone.

From the inner edge of the bed I could see through the window, and watched Orion rising behind the cliffs. The night turned pale, then for a long time the great gaunt precipice was revealed in tender primrose light and amber shade. I heard our riders saddle, mount, and canter away for the day's work. The two Chinamen went off also on some domestic errand. The sunrise caught the pines upon the rim-rock into points of flame. I heard a distant shot, and fell asleep.

The widow had stumped about nearly all night, weary to the tip of her wooden leg, poor soul, so when I woke again and crept to the lean-to door, it was a relief to find that she had gone to sleep. She had left me a saucepan full of bread and milk which I warmed, and it warmed me nicely.

Mrs. O'Flynn asleep is like peace after war. Dressing in stealth, I prayed for peace in our time, then with a sweet enjoyment of fresh guilt, stole out into the sunshine.

Instead of Jesse's whistling, Mick's barking, the altercations in the new ram-pasture where our cow-boys live, the snuffles of old Jones, our yard was filled with the exact opposite. Of course each sound has its opposite, its shadow, making a gap in the chorus of things heard, and when all the homely voices are replaced by gaps, one feels the desolation of the high lonesome. Yet I fled away lest the widow's vengeful stump should overtake me. I was so tired of being in bed.

The silver spring, the glade of marigolds, the brier-rose brake, are all most necessary before one ventures into the cathedral grove, for it is not well to pa.s.s direct from any worldly home into a holy place. And yet I felt that something was badly wrong, for evil persons must have come in the night and stretched the trail to double its usual length. I was very angry, and I shall tell my husband.

I reached the grove, at this cool hour so like a green lagoon where coral piers branch up to some ribbed vault. The waves of incense, the river's organ throb, the glory in the windows, gave me peace, but the choir of the winds had gone away, and for once in that sweet solitude I was lonely. My sitting is at the root of the governess tree, and Jesse's under the great father pine. If he were only there, how it would ease the pain. I needed him so badly as I sat there, trying to make him present in my thoughts. He had gone away, and the squirrel who lives in the widow tree, had taken even his match ends. Only the cigar stubs were left, which would, of course, be bad for the squirrel's children. I wasn't well enough to call but I left my nut.

Close by is the terrific verge of the inner canon, and sitting at the very edge of death I saw into the mists.

It was so foolish, why should I be frightened of death, such a coward in bearing pain? And yet I had better confess the truth, that presently I ran away screaming, my skirt torn by brambles, my feet caught in the roots. Only when I pa.s.sed the place where by anemones live, and beyond the east door of the grove came out into full sunlight, I could go no farther but fell to the ground exhausted. Yes, it was very silly, and that blind panic shamed me as I looked up at the crescent of silvery birch trees who hold court at the foot of the upper cliff.

Something small and black was coming toward me, a clergyman too, and nervous, because he twiddled his little hat.

"Are you in pain?" he asked.

"Are you a fairy?" I answered, wondering. I couldn't think of anything else at the moment, for our lost ranch is so far from everywhere.

"No, madam," he said quite gravely. "I'm only a curate. May I sit down?"

My heart went out to him, for he was so little, so old, English like me, but with the manner of the great world. When he sat down he took care not to hurt one of my flowers.

"I fear I'm trespa.s.sing," he said, "in your royal gardens. May I introduce myself? My name is Nisted--Jared Nisted, once an army chaplain, now a tourist."