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ANCESTRAL VOICES

Archibald Mudge, alias Frosty, dressed in a clean white ap.r.o.n, stood behind the bar and surveyed his handiwork with satisfaction. It had gone well, and for this one day his master had been in an unwontedly good humor.

Directly opposite, a wide door opened into the new dance hall. From where Frosty stood one could see that it was a long low room, flag-draped, with few windows, and furnished only by an unbroken line of benches against the wall. One standing in the doorway, however, could have perceived that at one end were placed for the musicians a number of tall "look-out" stools--tall in order that the performers might at once overlook the performance of the square-dance "figures,"

and early prepare to avoid possible hostilities. A number of large lamps with reflectors illuminated the apartment with crossed shafts of light.

Frosty polished gla.s.ses in antic.i.p.ation of the evening's business, which would be lively, glancing complacently from the fresh-scrubbed floor to the lately renewed sheets, imitating plaster. As the outer door was now closed, he was relieved from the necessity of ejecting Peter. It did no good to tie Peter up: either the animal was ingenious at escapes, or the men were mischievous in their desire to bother Frosty. This was one of Frosty's many troubles. He led a life of care.

After a little, the door opened, and three men came in. They steered to the bar at once, as a sort of familiar haven in strange surroundings. From its anchorage they took their initial view of the hall. After subsequent arrivals had braced them to the point of confidence, they made a first awful tour of that apartment, but soon returned to more familiar surroundings. The saloon filled with a heterogeneous gathering. All types were there in their best clothes, from the spotlessly immaculate faro dealer, dressed in a black broadcloth frock coat, to Dave Kelly, with his new red handkerchief and his high-heeled boots. The main gathering remained crowded in the saloon, whence small groups occasionally ventured into the hall, but only for the purposes of temporary inspection. A hum of low-voiced talk went up, which fell to expectant silence every time the door was opened. The musicians from Spanish Gulch arrived and began to tune up.

They were closely followed by the first woman, a red-cheeked awkward country la.s.s, who took her position on the bench near one corner and began at once to dispense smiles and loud small talk to the men who followed her there. The a.s.sistants' spirits rose. They had known this girl as Sal Jenks, of rather drab-colored disposition and appearance.

To-night, in the glamour of a light-colored dress and the illumination of a ball room, she had suddenly become transformed into something quite different and infinitely more attractive. The musicians played a tune. The other women came in, gayly dressed and accompanied always by a red-faced swain. Black Mike took his stand at the side of Frosty, and began to a.s.sist that individual in dispensing drinks. Black Mike's democracy was no small element of his popularity. At about half-past eight those near the door saw him talking with Cheyenne Harry. A buzz swept over the room. Copper Creek had been waiting in suppressed excitement to see whom Cheyenne Harry would accompany--Molly Lafond or the newcomer--and lo! he had come alone.

Then, before the astonishment had subsided, the outer door opened again and Molly entered, looking very pale and sweet and serious.

She walked directly by the bar into the dance hall, where she seated herself near the door and looked calmly about her. She was dressed entirely in white. Cheyenne Harry was leaning over the bar talking attentively, so that he was perhaps the only person in the room who did not see her come in. A dozen men at once surrounded her and began to chat. She answered them good-humoredly enough, but indifferently.

The door once more flew open and Bismarck Anne, standing on the sill, cried out in her clear, high voice, "Well, boys!" She paused a moment.

Cheyenne Harry, turning at the sound of her voice, remembered how, about a year ago, Molly Lafond had stood there in just that att.i.tude.

But he felt a great difference.

Cheyenne Harry had for some time, as we have said, been growing a little tired of his affair with Molly. The mental ingredients of satiety were all present, but he had as yet received no conscious notice of their existence. He imagined himself as much fascinated as ever. If something lately had seemed to lack, he had laid it to circ.u.mstances and not at all to the state of his relations with the girl. But for all that, the satiety had been real. He only needed to be told of it to realize it himself very plainly. Bismarck Anne had told him.

He saw now absolutely no attraction for himself in Molly Lafond, and that without attempting to deny her intrinsic attraction for others.

He simply did not care for her any more. It seemed perhaps like a sudden revulsion, but it was not so really; it had been inevitable from the very first, and from the very first it had been slowly maturing.

Not even the results were sudden: only Cheyenne Harry's knowledge of them.

He had always felt his relations with Molly Lafond as more or less restrictive, because the good is always so. He had dimly caught the truth that, without a deep moral incentive, restriction is always irksome; that although pure love is the most ideal condition in the world, its simulation is the most wearisome after the novelty has worn off; and all the rest of the long psychological train of emotion and reasoning common to the trifler. But now for the first time he knew it. He knew it because, standing in the doorway, looking at him with bold black eyes, was the exact opposite of all this, and he recognized a mighty relief.

Bismarck Anne knew enough to dress all in black. She had the taste to appreciate the effect of one red flower in her hair as her only ornament. She had the sense to wear her dress cut neither too low above nor too high below. And so she was exceedingly handsome as she stood there, the devil of excitement in her eyes.

Cheyenne Harry abruptly ceased his conversation with Lafond to shake hands with her. They turned in company. Harry linked his arm through hers, and they entered the dance hall close together, and took their seats in a corner far removed from the musicians, where they continued engaged in such earnest conversation that none of the men ventured to approach them. After a time, when the music struck up for the first dance, she seemed to be commanding something to which Cheyenne Harry seemed to be objecting. Then the latter arose slowly and asked Molly Lafond to dance the first dance with him. She accepted with a sharp pang at her heart. The newcomer had scored.

Owing to the scarcity of the gentler s.e.x, it had been decided that no one "set" was to be blessed with more than one girl. Thus they would go around better. Molly, glancing across at her rival, saw that she was surrounded by a laughing group of men. The woman was joking broadly at each, wriggling her white shoulders, darting side glances, half promising, half denying. In a moment the group broke, and the members of it rushed in her own direction. They were already quarrelling for places in her set. The matter was arranged somehow after much wrangling. Then, too late, Molly saw that the other woman had scored again. Bismarck Anne had not only selected her partner, but also the other six members of the set. Thus she had made seven men happy and none jealous.

A Western dance is a sight worth seeing. The musicians call off the figures. The head fiddler does it until his voice gives out. Then the second fiddler and the accordion take a try at it, after which further calling is unnecessary owing to the fact that most of the dancers are very drunk. This comes to pa.s.s because, at the end of each dance, all are supposed to visit the bar. The most heinous crime, next to horse stealing or sluice robbing, is "shying drinks" at such times. As some men can hold more than others this enforced equality of quant.i.ty consumed brings about unexpected variation in the hilarity of the consumers, all of which adds to the variety of the occasion.

The interims between drinks are occupied by square dances. The men go through some set of monkey shines which they call figures, the princ.i.p.al object of which seems to be at once the tripping up of such male and the prolonged squeezing of such female dancers as they may come into intimate personal relations with on their grand rounds, which is conducive to hilarity of the loud-mouthed variety. The exercise itself is rather violent, and as the room is low, lit by lamps, and comparatively windowless, the air soon becomes heavy with the reek of perspiration and the fumes of tobacco. The floor acquires a heaving motion and the lights sway back and forth. The homeliest of the dance-hall girls somehow looks like a fairy through the haze--a rather elusive fairy, with a rather heavy unfairylike gait. At this period there is usually a good deal of noise. Then all at once it is morning, and somehow the scene has changed to the ravine, and there is a tomato can poking itself into the small of the back.

Molly tripped gracefully and easily through the figures of the opening dance, seeming scarcely to touch the floor. Bismarck Anne leaned heavily on each man in the swing, and pressed her bosom against his arm. Twice she half slipped and caught by the shoulder of her partner of the moment, and her breath was hot against his throat. She said not one word the whole dance through.

With the last quaver of the fiddle came the harsh command--

"S'lute yore pardners! All promenade to th' bar!"

They obeyed. The sets went in two by two, the men treating their masculine partners with humorous politeness in the matter of a.s.sistance in crossing the sill of the door. The non-dancers crowded after them in a confused mob.

At the bar Frosty had the drinks all ready on the back shelf. Black Mike a.s.sisted him, and together the two, their sleeves rolled back and their faces glistening with the sweat of honest toil, pa.s.sed over br.i.m.m.i.n.g little gla.s.ses of "forty rod" and jingled two-bit pieces into the drawer. Bismarck Anne drank with the best of them, leaning familiarly against the men nearest her, bandying jokes that were more than doubtful. Molly sat on her corner of the bar but did not drink.

At the beginning of the next dance the aspect of things was a trifle changed. A bigger crowd gathered about Bismarck Anne soliciting places in her set, and it was more familiar. Some one s.n.a.t.c.hed a kiss of her.

She merely laughed and pushed him away. There seemed to have suddenly sprung up between them and her a _camaraderie_ in which Molly had no part, as though they and the newcomer had some secret to keep to themselves which thrust the younger girl without the circle.

Cheyenne Harry did not come near her again. He seemed wholly fascinated by the stranger. The sight of his attentions to the other aroused Molly. A bright red spot burned in either cheek. She was all animation. Her laughter rang true, her eyes flashed with merriment.

For every one she had a joke, a half-tender, half-sympathetic aside.

She saw that as long as they were in her actual presence the men were wholly hers. And yet she felt too the subtle growth of this other woman's influence, and realized that eventually it would beat her down.

In spite of her brave appearance her throat choked her. Only by a great concentration of the will could she prevent herself from lapsing into silence, and then into tears. As the strain began to tell on her nerves, the old feeling of unknowable guilt came to oppress her heart, and with it a growing longing to get away, to hide somewhere; to begin all over again humbly, below the lowest; to claim nothing, to attempt nothing, to do nothing in opposition to that accusing Thought which seemed greater than herself. All at once she was tired of struggling.

She was ready to give up this life, if only they would let her feel like something besides a breathless naughty child, fearfully expecting every moment the grave reproving voice of the Master.

She chided herself for this. It was not game. Pluck she admired above everything; and yet here she was, ready to run away at the first taste of defeat. She smiled ravishingly on Dave Kelly, until he began to speculate on the possibility of repeating that delicious experience which Peter had so inopportunely cut short.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ARE YOU STILL MAD?"]

As the evening progressed, the "forty rod" began to show its effects.

Williams had to have the full width of the floor whenever he tried to walk, and his enthusiastic imitations of an angry catamount were most creditable. Some one was always disgustedly repressing him. Several others were in like condition with different symptoms. The soberest manifested increased vigor of limb and fertility of imagination. A happy combination of these two effects brought about the proposal of a turkey walk. A ring was formed on the instant.

Into the ring two men, chosen _viva voce_, were pushed. They began at once to strut back and forth like turkey c.o.c.ks in the spring. They hollowed their backs in, stuck their chests and rumps out, slapped their thighs, toed in, puffed their cheeks, ducked their heads, uttered sundry gurgling whoops, and hopped about, first on one foot, then on the other in a charmingly, impartial imitation of a Southern cake walk and a Sioux Indian war dance. These performances tickled the crowd immensely. When it came to noisy vote on the relative merits of the performers, it vociferously shouted unanimous approval of all.

Therefore the contest was p.r.o.nounced a tie. At this moment Dave Williams staggered forward. His muddled brain had room for only the most evident facts. He saw the ring and his drunken shrewdness had retained cognizance of the evening's rivalry. He mixed the two ideas up to effect a proposal.

"Hyar," he shouted, "lesh do this ri'! I secon' Bismarck Anne!" He let out a wild-cat yell--"Whe-ee!! Two t' one on Anne!"

Some one hit him on the chest and sent him staggering backward. He gyrated unevenly toward the corner, stumbled over his own feet, and sat down heavily on the floor, where after feeling vainly for his gun he relapsed into good humor. But his suggestion hit the popular fancy.

The idea ran like fire. In a second the ring was formed again. Those in front knelt; those behind looked over their shoulders. Even Frosty and Black Mike deserted the bar and stood leaning in the doorway. The girls were urged forward into the ring, which closed after them, and the music was ordered to proceed.

Bismarck Anne walked calmly into the circle and stood looking about her. Molly had an instant of doubt. Then a revulsion against her easy surrender got her to her feet and into the ring. The gauntlet was down. She would accept the challenge. It was a duel.

There was a moment's squabble between two self-appointed officials in regard to precedence. It was settled, and Molly was beckoned to begin.

The fiddles started up a squeaky, lively air to which the men kept time with hands and feet. The young girl, her cheeks burning, stepped into the centre of the ring and struck the first graceful pose of the _cachucha_, learned years before at the Agency from a little Mexican serving-maid. The men recognized it in a swift quickly silenced burst.

The fiddles changed their measure to suit the dance.

The _cachucha_ is a beautiful dance when rightly done. It is a combination of airy half-steps, sinuous body movements, and slow languorous and graceful weavings of the arms. It has in it all the enchantment of the lazy South. There is not an abrupt movement in it, but one pose melts into another as imperceptibly as night into day.

Molly did it well. Her supple figure was suited to it, and the very refinement of her actions enhanced the charm of the dance. The men applauded vehemently when she stopped. The other woman laughed aloud in scorn.

With a final sweeping curtsy the dancer turned to go. The flush of triumph and excitement burned on her cheeks and in her eyes. Finding the ring solidly closed so that exit was impossible, she accepted a seat on the knee of one of those in the front rank. The man put his arms around her and drew her close in a drunken embrace, which the girl only half noticed.

Bismarck Anne sprang to the centre of the ring at one bound, the sneer still on her lips. She turned abruptly to the musicians.

"Quit that d.a.m.n stuff!" she snarled. "Play somethin'!"

The musicians hurriedly swung into a lively air.

Bismarck Anne's dance was not especially graceful. It consisted mainly of high kicks and a certain athletic feat known as the split. But it was magnificent in its abandon, and fierce in the crude animal energy of it. Besides its mere suggestiveness and appeal to the pa.s.sions, it had too a swing, a fire, a brute-like force which could not but hit to the hearts of men at bottom strong, crude, and savage. They went crazy. They shouted encouraging things at her with open straining throats. They stamped and cheered until the lights wavered. They clapped each other delightedly on the back. And Bismarck Anne danced ever the more furiously. She kicked with enthusiasm, with abandon, holding her short skirts still higher to gain the greater freedom. The tiger-lily fell from her head and was s.n.a.t.c.hed up almost before it touched the floor. Her heavy black hair came down, and hung in strands across her face, and fell in vivid contrast upon her white shoulders and her heaving bosom. She shook it back with a savage movement.

And she in the corner, who was nothing but a woman, with little of the savage in her to appeal to savage men, and, for all her independence, little of this bold reckless spirit of the frontier in her to appeal to pioneers, felt herself growing sick and faint as she saw these greater forces slipping beyond her control roaringly, as would a mountain torrent. Her rule was over, and this woman's had begun. The room swayed before her eyes. Some one behind her handed a br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.s of whisky over her shoulder, and she seized it eagerly and gulped it down.