Part 15 (1/2)
”Well,” admitted Brigham, ”of course them Apaches are bad--but they keep 'em around the Fort most of the time, and don't let 'em carry guns when they go out--nothin' but bows and arrows. Come on--they won't make us no trouble!”
”Well, by Jove, Brig,” sighed Bowles, drawing a long breath, ”I'm awfully tempted to do it!”
”Sure,” nodded Brigham, ”finest trip in the world--an' I know that country like a book!”
”But let's finish the round-up first,” suggested Bowles. ”And, besides, I want to find out who it is that's searching for me. I guess I didn't tell you what I'm hiding for?”
”No,” shrugged Brigham; ”that's all right. Then if anybody should ask me, I'll tell 'em I don't know nothin'.”
”Well, I'm going to tell you, anyhow!” cried Bowles impulsively. ”I've got an aunt back East, and she's an awfully nice woman--does everything for me--but I have to do what she says. She doesn't _make_ me do it, you know--she just _expects_ me to do it! Maybe you never had any one like that? Well, I've always tried to do what she liked--she's my father's sister, you know--but this spring I just had to run away.”
”Too much fer you, eh?” commented Brigham, grinning.
”No, it wasn't that so much, but she--she told me I ought to get married!”
”Well, what's the matter?” inquired Brigham, his grin wreathing back to his ears. ”What's the matter with that?”
Bowles blushed and blinked with embarra.s.sment.
”Well, the fact is, Brigham,” he said, ”she picked out the girl herself!”
”No! Never asked you, nor nothin'? What did the girl say?”
”Oh, Christabel? Why, she never knew, of course. I came out West immediately.”
A puzzled look came over Brigham's honest face.
”Say, lemme git the straight of this,” he said. ”I'm a kind of Mormon myself, you know, and these fellers are always throwin' it into me about the way Mormons marry off their gals--did yore aunt make some trade with her folks?”
”Who--Christabel?” gasped Bowles, now breaking into a sweat. ”Why, bless your soul, no! You don't understand how things are done in New York, Brig. Nothing was even _said_, you know, it was just understood! My aunt didn't even tell me whom she had in mind--she just told me I ought to be married, and threw me into Christabel's society. But I knew it--I knew it from the first day--and rather than hurt Christabel's feelings I just picked up and ran away!”
”Well, I'll be durned!” observed Brigham, gazing upon him with wonder.
”And we thought you was tryin' to git Dix!”
CHAPTER XV
BURYING THE HATCHET
To the hard-riding cowboy of the plains, the subtleties of emotion and romance are a closed book--just as the hand that whirls the rope is too crabbed to play the violin. Some of us in this world must do the heavy work. Some hands must be knotted, some backs bent with labor, some brows furrowed with wind and weather and the hard realities of life; but in return the laborers gain the strength of the wind-tossed oak and the patience of the ages. There are others whose lot it is to write the poetry and paint the pictures and reach out into the great unknown for a thousand haunting chords and harmonies; but they are a people apart.
Their very sensitiveness makes them unequal to the stress of life; their slender hands cannot perform hard labor, and their hearts cannot endure the monotony and anguish of unremitting toil--yet they have their place in the world.
The time may come when the tasks and rewards will be divided again and each of us be given a more equal share, but until that day men will fall into cla.s.ses--and neither will understand the other. Samuel Bowles had lived the protected life, but Brigham had buffeted his way. At the story of the Lady Christabel he stood agape, marveling at the man who could perceive such subtle advances, wondering at the nature that would flee for such a cause; but in the end he gazed upon him pityingly, and accepted him for his friend.
”I'll tell you, pardner,” he said, as they drifted their cattle along; ”I'm up ag'inst it, too. They's a gal over on the river--don't make no difference about her name--but I used to think a lot of her. Wasn't skeered of her none, the way I am with Dix. She was an awful good girl, too--no fly ways or nothin'--an' I was kinder fixin' to marry her when I had this racket with the bishop. My folks are all Mormons, of course, and so are hers, and I like 'em well enough in certain ways, but I can't stand them dang priests. As long as I'm free I can pull out and go where I please, but the minute I marry and settle down I'm up ag'inst it proper.”
”Why, what's the matter?” inquired Bowles, thinking of all the awful things he had heard about the Saints, but discreetly holding his peace.
”Will they punish you for running away?”