Part 14 (2/2)

”I love you so. You don't understand.”

She did not and looked at him inquiringly, hoping to learn something from his face. His eyes, meeting hers, were full of tears. It surprised her so that she stared speechlessly at him, her head thrown back, her lips parted.

He looked down, ashamed of his emotion, murmuring:

”You don't understand. It's so sacred. Some day you will.”

She did not speak to him again, but she let him hold her hand because she thought she ought to and because she was sorry.

CHAPTER VI

The next morning the rain was pouring. The train rolled out without picturesque circ.u.mstance, the men cursing, the oxen, with great heads swinging under the yokes, plodding doggedly through lakes fretted with the downpour. Breakfast was a farce; n.o.body's fire would burn and the women were wet through before they had the coffee pots out. One or two provident parties had stoves fitted up in their wagons with a joint of pipe coming out through holes in the canvas. From these, wafts of smoke issued with jaunty a.s.surance, to be beaten down by the rain, which swept them fiercely out of the landscape.

There was no perspective, the distance invisible, nearer outlines blurred. The world was a uniform tint, walls of gray marching in a slant across a foreground embroidered with pools. Water ran, or dripped, or stood everywhere. The river, its surface roughened by the spit of angry drops, ran swollen among its islands, plumed shapes seen mistily through the veil. The road emerged in oases of mud from long, inundated s.p.a.ces. Down the gullies in the hills, following the beaten buffalo tracks, streams percolated through the gra.s.s of the bottom, feeling their way to the river.

Notwithstanding the weather a goodly company of mounted men rode at the head of the train. They were wet to the skin and quite indifferent to it. They had already come to regard the vagaries of the weather as matters of no import. Mosquitoes and Indians were all they feared. On such nights many of them slept in the open under a tarpaulin, and when the water grew deep about them scooped out a drainage ca.n.a.l with a hand that sleep made heavy.

When the disorder of the camping ground was still in sight, Susan, with the desire of social intercourse strong upon her, climbed into the wagon of her new friends. They were practical, thrifty people, and were as comfortable as they could be under a roof of soaked canvas in a heavily weighted prairie schooner that every now and then b.u.mped to the bottom of a chuck hole. The married sister sat on a pile of sacks disposed in a form that made a comfortable seat. A blanket was spread behind her, and thus enthroned she knitted at a stocking of gray yarn.

Seen in the daylight she was young, fresh-skinned, and not uncomely.

Placidity seemed to be the dominating note of her personality. It found physical expression in the bland parting of her hair, drawn back from her smooth brow, her large plump hands with their deliberate movements and dimples where more turbulent souls had knuckles, and her quiet eyes, which turned upon anyone who addressed her a long ruminating look before she answered. She had an air of almost oracular profundity but she was merely in the quiescent state of the woman whose faculties and strength are concentrated upon the coming child. Her sister called her Bella and the people in the train addressed her as Mrs. McMurdo.

Lucy was beside her also knitting a stocking, and the husband, Glen McMurdo, sat in the front driving, his legs in the rain, his upper half leaning back under the shelter of the roof. He looked sleepy, gave a grunt of greeting to Susan, and then lapsed against the saddle propped behind him, his hat pulled low on his forehead hiding his eyes. In this position, without moving or evincing any sign of life, he now and then appeared to be roused to the obligations of his position and shouted a drowsy ”Gee Haw,” at the oxen.

He did not interfere with the women and they broke into the talk of their s.e.x, how they cooked, which of their clothes had worn best, what was the right way of jerking buffalo meat. And then on to personal matters: where they came from, what they were at home, whither they were bound. The two sisters were Scotch girls, had come from Scotland twenty years ago when Lucy was a baby. Their home was Cooperstown where Glen was a carpenter. He had heard wonderful stories of California, how there were no carpenters there and people were flocking in, so he'd decided to emigrate.

”And once he'd got his mind set on it, he had to start,” said his wife.

”Couldn't wait for anything but must be off then and there. That's the way men are.”

”It's a hard trip for you,” said Susan, wondering at Mrs. McMurdo's serenity.

”Well, I suppose it is,” said Bella, as if she did not really think it was, but was too lazy to disagree. ”I hope I'll last till we get to Fort Bridger.”

”What's at Fort Bridger?”

”It's a big place with lots of trains coming and going and there'll probably be a doctor among them. And they say it's a good place for the animals--plenty of gra.s.s--so it'll be all right if I'm laid up for long. But I have my children very easily.”

It seemed to the doctor's daughter a desperate outlook and she eyed, with a combination of pity and awe, the untroubled Bella reclining on the throne of sacks. The wagon gave a creaking lurch and Bella nearly lost count of her st.i.tches which made her frown as she was turning the heel. The lurch woke her husband who pushed back his hat, shouted ”Gee Haw” at the oxen, and then said to his wife:

”You got to cut my hair, Bella. These long tags hanging down round my ears worry me.”

”Yes, dear, as soon as the weather's fine. I'll borrow a bowl from Mrs. Peeble's mother so that it'll be cut evenly all the way round.”

Here there was an interruption, a breathless, baby voice at the wheel, and Glen leaned down and dragged up his son Bob, wet, wriggling, and muddy. The little fellow, four years old, had on a homespun s.h.i.+rt and drawers, both dripping. His hair was a wet mop, hanging in rat tails to his eyes. Under its thatch his face, pink and smiling, was as fresh as a dew-washed rose. Tightly gripped in a dirty paw were two wild flowers, and it was to give these to his mother that he had come.

He staggered toward her, the wagon gave a jolt, and he fell, clasping her knees and filling the air with the sweetness of his laughter. Then holding to her arm and shoulder, he drew himself higher and pressed the flowers close against her nose.

”Is it a bu'full smell?” he inquired, watching her face with eyes of bright inquiry.

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