Part 11 (2/2)

he continued to the amazed Ogden, who had e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed ”Bigamy!” ”Lots of them marry, live together awhile, get tired and quit, travel, catch on to a new man, marry him, get tired and quit, travel, catch on--”

”One moment, I beg,” said Ogden, adjusting his gla.s.ses. ”What does the law--”

”Law?” said the Governor. ”Look at that place!” He swept his hand towards the vast plains and the mountains. ”Ninety-five thousand square miles of that, and sixty thousand people in it. We haven't got policemen yet on top of the Rocky Mountains.”

”I see,” said the New-Yorker. ”But--but--well let A and B represent first and second husbands, and X represent the woman. Now, does A know about B? or does B know about A? And what do they do about it?”

”Can't say,” the Governor answered, jovially. ”Can't generalize. Depends on heaps of things--love--money--Did you go to college? Well, let A minus X equal B plus X, then if A and B get squared--”

”Oh, come to lunch,” I said. ”Barker, do you really know the first husband is alive?”

”Wasn't dead last winter.” And Barker gave us the particulars. Miss Katie Peck had not served long in the restaurant before she was wooed and won by a man who had been a ranch cook, a sheep-herder, a bar-tender, a freight hand, and was then hauling poles for the government. During his necessary absences from home she, too, went out-of-doors. This he often discovered, and would beat her, and she would then also beat him. After the beatings one of them would always leave the other forever. Thus was Sidney kept in small-talk until Mrs. Lusk one day really did not come back. ”Lusk,” said the Governor, finis.h.i.+ng his story, ”cried around the saloons for a couple of days, and then went on hauling poles for the government, till at last he said he'd heard of a better job south, and next we knew of him he was round Leavenworth. Lusk was a pretty poor bird. Owes me ten dollars.”

”Well,” I said, ”none of us ever knew about him when she came to stay with Mrs. Taylor on Bear Creek. She was Miss Peck when Lin made her Mrs.

McLean.”

”You'll notice,” said the Governor, ”how she has got him under in three weeks. Old hand, you see.”

”Poor Lin!” I said.

”Lucky, I call him,” said the Governor. ”He can quit her.”

”Supposing McLean does not want to quit her?”

”She's educating him to want to right now, and I think he'll learn pretty quick. I guess Mr. Lin's romance wasn't very ideal this trip.

h.e.l.lo! here comes Jode. Jode, won't you lunch with us? Mr. Ogden, of New York, Mr. Jode. Mr. Jode is our signal-service officer, Mr. Ogden.” The Governor's eyes were sparkling hilariously, and he winked at me.

”Gentlemen, good-morning. Mr. Ogden, I am honored to make your acquaintance,” said the signal-service officer.

”Jode, when is it going to rain?” said the Governor, anxiously.

Now Jode is the most extraordinarily solemn man I have ever known. He has the solemnity of all science, added to the unspeakable weight of representing five of the oldest families in South Carolina. The Jodes themselves were not old in South Carolina, but immensely so in--I think he told me it was Long Island. His name is Poinsett Middleton Manigault Jode. He used to weigh a hundred and twenty-eight pounds then, but his health has strengthened in that climate. His clothes were black; his face was white, with black eyes sharp as a pin; he had the shape of a spout--the same narrow size all the way down--and his voice was as dry and light as an egg-sh.e.l.l. In his first days at Cheyenne he had constantly challenged large cowboys for taking familiarities with his dignity, and they, after one moment's bewilderment, had concocted apologies that entirely met his exactions, and gave them much satisfaction also. n.o.body would have hurt Jode for the world. In time he came to see that Wyoming was a game invented after his book of rules was published, and he looked on, but could not play the game. He had fallen, along with other incongruities, into the roaring Western hotch-pot, and he pa.s.sed his careful, precise days with barometers and weather-charts.

He answered the Governor with official and South Carolina impressiveness. ”There is no indication of diminution of the prevailing pressure,” he said.

”Well, that's what I thought,” said the joyous Governor, ”so I'm going to whoop her up.”

”What do you expect to whoop up, sir?”

”Atmosphere, and all that,” said the Governor. ”Whole business has got to get a move on. I've sent for a rain-maker.”

”Governor, you are certainly a wag, sir,” said Jode, who enjoyed Barker as some people enjoy a symphony, without understanding it. But after we had reached the club and were lunching, and Jode realized that a letter had actually been written telling Hilbrun to come and bring his showers with him, the punctilious signal-service officer stated his position.

”Have your joke, sir,” he said, waving a thin, clean hand, ”but I decline to meet him.”

”Hilbrun?” said the Governor, staring.

”If that's his name--yes, sir. As a member of the Weather Bureau and the Meteorological Society I can have nothing to do with the fellow.”

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