Part 3 (1/2)

”Mornin', friend,” said the young man.

”Good-morning,” said Franklin.

”I allow you're just in on the front,” said the other.

”Yes,” said Franklin, ”I came on the last train.”

”Stay long?”

”Well, as to that,” said Franklin, ”I hardly know, but I shall look around a bit.”

”I didn't know but maybe you'd like to go south o' here, to Plum Centre.

I run the stage line down there, about forty-six miles, twict a week.

That's my livery barn over there--second wooden building in the town.

Sam's my name; Sam Poston.”

”I never heard of Plum Centre,” said Franklin, with some amus.e.m.e.nt. ”Is it as large a place as this?”

”Oh, no,” said Sam hurriedly, ”not nigh as large as this, but it's a good town, all right. Lots on the main street there sold for three hundred dollars last week. You see, old man Plum has got it figgered out that his town is right in the middle of the United States, ary way you measure it. We claim the same thing for Ellisville, and there you are. We've got the railroad, and they've got my stage line. There can't no one tell yet which is goin' to get the bulge on the other. If you want to go down there, come over and I'll fix you up.”

Franklin replied that he would be glad to do so in case he had the need, and was about to turn away. He was interrupted by the other, who stopped him with an explosive ”Say!”

”Yes,” said Franklin.

”Did you notice that girl in the dining room, pony-built like, slick, black-haired, dark eyes--wears gla.s.ses? Say, that's the smoothest girl west of the river. She's waitin', in the hotel here, but say”

(confidentially), ”she taught school onct--yes, sir. You know, I'm gone on that girl the worst way. If you get a chanct to put in a word for me, you do it, won't you?”

Franklin was somewhat impressed with the swiftness of acquaintances.h.i.+ps and of general affairs in this new land, but he retained his own tactfulness and made polite a.s.surances of aid should it become possible.

”I'd be mightily obliged,” said his new-found friend. ”Seems like I lose my nerve every time I try to say a word to that girl. Now, I plum forgot to ast you which way you was goin'. Do you want a team?”

”Thank you,” said Franklin, ”but I hardly think so. I want to find my friend Colonel Battersleigh, and I understand he lives not very far away.”

”Oh, you mean old Batty. Yes, he lives just out south a little ways--Section No. 9, southeast quarter. I suppose you could walk.”

”I believe I will walk, if you don't mind,” said Franklin. ”It seems very pleasant, and I am tired of riding.”

”All right, so long,” said Sam. ”Don't you forgit what I told you about that Nora girl.”

Franklin pa.s.sed on in the direction which had been pointed out to him, looking about him at the strange, new country, in which he felt the proprietors.h.i.+p of early discovery. He drew in deep breaths of an air delightfully fresh, squaring his shoulders and throwing up his head instinctively as he strode forward. The sky was faultlessly clear. The prospect all about him, devoid as it was of variety, was none the less abundantly filling to the eye. Far as the eye could reach rolled an illimitable, tawny sea. The short, harsh gra.s.s near at hand he discovered to be dotted here and there with small, gay flowers. Back of him, as he turned his head, he saw a square of vivid green, which water had created as a garden spot of gra.s.s and flowers at the stone hotel. He did not find this green of civilization more consoling or inspiring than the natural colour of the wild land that lay before him. For the first time in his life he looked upon the great Plains, and for the first time felt their fascination. There came to him a subtle, strange exhilaration. A sensation of confidence, of certainty, arose in his heart. He trod as a conqueror upon a land new taken. All the earth seemed happy and care-free. A meadow lark was singing shrilly high up in the air; another lark answered, clanking contentedly from the gra.s.s, whence in the bright air its yellow breast showed brilliantly.

As Franklin was walking on, busy with the impressions of his new world, he became conscious of rapid hoof-beats coming up behind him, and turned to see a horseman careering across the open in his direction, with no apparent object in view beyond that of making all the noise possible to be made by a freckled-faced cowboy who had been up all night, but still had some vitality which needed vent.

”Eeeeee-yow-heeeeee!” yelled the cowboy, both spurring and reining his supple, cringing steed. ”Eeeeeee-yip-yeeeee!” Thus vociferating, he rode straight at the footman, with apparently the deliberate wish to ride him down. He wist not that the latter had seen cavalry in his day, and was not easily to be disconcerted, and, finding that he failed to create a panic, he pulled up with the pony's nose almost over Franklin's shoulder.

”h.e.l.lo, stranger,” cried the rider, cheerfully; ”where are you goin', this bright an' happy mornin'?”

Franklin was none too pleased at the method of introduction selected by this youth, but a look at his open and guileless face forbade the thought of offence. The cowboy sat his horse as though he was cognizant of no such creature beneath him. His hand was held high and wabbling as he bit off a chew from a large tobacco plug the while he jogged alongside.