Part 4 (2/2)
”Bidwell! Come forth!”
”A speech! A speech!”
Bidwell was for poking his revolver out through the unc.h.i.n.ked walls and ordering the mob to disperse, but his wife was diplomatic.
”'Tis but an excuse to get drink,” she said. ”Go give them treat.”
So Bidwell went forth, and, while a couple of stalwart friends lifted him high, he shouted, sharp and to the point, ”It's on me, Clark!”
The mob, howling with delight, rushed upon him and bore him away, struggling and sputtering, to Clark's saloon, where kegs of beer were broached and the crowd took a first deep draught. Bidwell, in alarm for Maggie, began to fight to get back to the cabin. But cries arose for the bride.
”The bride--let's see the bride!”
Bidwell expostulated. ”Oh no! Leave her alone. Are you gentlemen? If you are, you won't insist on seeing her.”
In the midst of the crowd a clear voice rang out:
”The bride, is it? Well, here she is. Get out o' me way.”
”Clear the road there for the bride!” yelled a hundred voices as Maggie walked calmly up an aisle densely walled with strange men. She had been accustomed to such characters all her life, and knew them too well to be afraid. Mounting a beer-keg, she turned a benign face on the crowd. The light of the torches lighted her hair till it shone like spun gold in a halo round her head. She looked very handsome in the warm, sympathetic light of the burning pitch-pine.
”Oh yiss, Oi'll make a speech; I'm not afraid of a handful of two-by-fours like you tenderfeet from the valley, and when me speech is ended ye'll go home and go to bed. Eleven days ago Sherm, me man, discovered this lode. Since then we've both worked night and day to git out the ore--we're dog-tired--sure we are--but we're raisonable folk and here we stand. Now gaze y'r fill and go home and l'ave us to rest--like y'r dacent mothers would have ye do.”
”Good for you, Maggie!” called old Angus Craig, who stood near her.
”Mak' way, lads!”
The men opened a path for the bride and groom and raised a thundering cheer as they pa.s.sed.
Old Angus Craig shook his head again and said to Johnson: ”Sik a luck canna last. To strike a lode and win a braw la.s.s a' in the day, ye may say. Hoo-iver, he waited lang for baith.”
THE COW-BOSS
_--the reckless cowboy on his watch-eyed bronco still lopes across the gra.s.sy foot-hills--or holds his milling herd in the high parks._
II
THE COW-BOSS
I
The post-office at Eagle River was so small that McCoy and his herders always spoke of the official within as ”the Badger,” saying that he must surely back into his den for lack of room to turn round. His presentment at the arched loophole in his stockade was formidable. His head was large, his brow high and seamed, his beard long and tangled, and the look of his hazel-gray eyes remote with cold abstraction.
”He's not a man to monkey with,” said McCoy when the boys complained that the old seed had put up a sign, ”NO SPITTING IN THIS OFFICE.” ”I'd advise you to act accordingly. I reckon he's boss of that thing while he's in there. He's a Populist, but he's regularly appointed by the President, and I don't see that we're in any position to presume to spit if he objects. No, there ain't a thing to do but get up a pet.i.tion and have him removed--and I won't agree to sign it when you do.”
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