Part 43 (2/2)
”To Californy; startin' from here as soon as my horse blows a spell and eats his last feed at your feed box, mom. I've got to make it to Meander to ketch the mornin' train.”
”Oh, Banjo! you don't tell me!” Tears gushed to Mrs. Chadron's eyes, used to so much weeping now, and her lips trembled as she pressed them hard to keep back a sob. ”You're the last friend of the old times, the last face outside of this house belongin' to the old days. When you're gone my last friend, the very last one I care about outside of my own, 'll be gone!”
Banjo cleared his throat unsteadily, and looked very hard at the fire for quite a spell before he spoke.
”The best of friends must part,” he said.
”Yes, they must part,” she admitted, her handkerchief pressed to her eyes, her voice m.u.f.fled behind it.
”But they ain't no use of me stayin' around in this country and pinin'
for what's gone, and starvin' on the edge,” said Banjo, briskly.
”Since you've sold out the cattle and the boys is all gone, scattered ever-which-ways and to Texas, and the homesteaders is comin' into this valley as thick as blackbirds, it ain't no place for me. I don't mix with them kind of people, I never did. You've give it all up to 'em, they tell me, but this homestead, mom?”
”All but the homestead,” she sighed, her tears checked now, her eyes on the farthest hill, where she had watched the crest many and many a time for Saul to rise over it, riding home from Meander.
”You hadn't ort to let it go,” said he, shaking his sad head.
”I couldn't'a'held it, the lawyers and Mr. Macdonald told me that.
It's public land, Banjo, it belongs to them folks, I reckon. But we was here first!” A futile sigh, a regretful sigh, a sigh bitter with old recollections.
”I reckon that's so, down to the bottom of it, but you folks made this country what it was, and by rights it's yourn. Well, I stopped in to say good-bye to the old brigamadier-colonel over at the post as I come through. He tells me Alan and that little girl of hisn that stuck to him and stood up for him through thick and thin 're goin' to be married at Christmas time.”
”Then they'll be leavin', too,” she said.
”No, they're goin' to build on his ranch up the river and stay here, and that old brigamadier-colonel he's goin' to take up land next to 'em, or has took it up, one of the two, and retire from the army when they're married. He says this country's the breath of his body and he couldn't live outside of it, he's been here so long.”
”Well, well!” said she, her face brightening a little at the news.
”How's Alan by now?”
”Up and around--he's goin' to leave us in the morning.”
”Frances here?” he asked.
”No, she went over home this morning--I thought maybe you met her--but she's comin' back for him in the morning.”
Banjo sat musing a little while. Then--
”Yes, you'll have neighbors, mom, plenty of 'em. A colony of nesters is comin' here, three or four hundred of 'em, they tell me, all ready to go to puttin' up schoolhouses and go to plowin' in the spring. And they're goin' to run that h.e.l.l-snortin' railroad right up this valley.
I reckon it'll cut right along here somewheres a'past your place.”
”Yes, changes'll come, Banjo, changes is bound to come,” she sighed.
”All over this country, they say, the nesters'll squat now wherever they want to, and n.o.body won't dast to take a shot at 'em to drive 'em off of his gra.s.s. They put so much in the papers about this rustlers'
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