第38章

By a most singular and fortunate coincidence Dr.Martin had learned that a patient of his at Big River was in urgent need of a call, so, to the open delight of the others and to the subdued delight of the doctor, he was to ride with them thus far on their journey.

"All set, Billy?" cried Cameron."Let them go.""Good-by, Billy," cried both ladies, to which Billy replied with a wave of his Stetson.

Away plunged the bronchos on a dead gallop, as if determined to end the journey during the next half hour at most, and away with them went the doctor upon his steady broncho, the latter much annoyed at being thus ignominiously outdistanced by these silly colts and so induced to strike a somewhat more rapid pace than he considered wise at the beginning of an all-day journey.Away down the street between the silent shacks and stores and out among the straggling residences that lined the trail.Away past the Indian encampment and the Police Barracks.Away across the echoing bridge, whose planks resounded like the rattle of rifles under the flying hoofs.

Away up the long stony hill, scrambling and scrabbling, but never ceasing till they reached the level prairie at the top.Away upon the smooth resilient trail winding like a black ribbon over the green bed of the prairie.Away down long, long slopes to low, wide valleys, and up long, long slopes to the next higher prairie level.

Away across the plain skirting sleughs where ducks of various kinds, and in hundreds, quacked and plunged and fought joyously and all unheeding.Away with the morning air, rare and wondrously exhilarating, rushing at them and past them and filling their hearts with the keen zest of living.Away beyond sight and sound of the great world, past little shacks, the brave vanguard of civilization, whose solitary loneliness only served to emphasize their remoteness from the civilization which they heralded.Away from the haunts of men and through the haunts of wild things where the shy coyote, his head thrown back over his shoulder, loped laughing at them and their futile noisy speed.Away through the wide rich pasture lands where feeding herds of cattle and bands of horses made up the wealth of the solitary rancher, whose low-built wandering ranch house proclaimed at once his faith and his courage.

Away and ever away, the shining morning hours and the fleeting miles racing with them, till by noon-day, all wet but still unweary, the bronchos drew up at the Big River Stopping Place, forty miles from the point of their departure.

Close behind the democrat rode Dr.Martin, the steady pace of his wise old broncho making up upon the dashing but somewhat erratic gait of the colts.

While the ladies passed into the primitive Stopping Place, the men unhitched the ponies, stripped off their harness and proceeded to rub them down from head to heel, wash out their mouths and remove from them as far as they could by these attentions the travel marks of the last six hours.

Big River could hardly be called even by the generous estimate of the optimistic westerner a town.It consisted of a blacksmith's shop, with which was combined the Post Office, a little school, which did for church--the farthest outpost of civilization--and a manse, simple, neat and tiny, but with a wondrous air of comfort about it, and very like the little Nova Scotian woman inside, who made it a very vestibule of heaven for many a cowboy and rancher in the district, and last, the Stopping Place run by a man who had won the distinction of being well known to the Mounted Police and who bore the suggestive name of Hell Gleeson, which appeared, however, in the old English Registry as Hellmuth Raymond Gleeson.The Mounted Police thought it worth while often to run in upon Hell at unexpected times, and more than once they had found it necessary to invite him to contribute to Her Majesty's revenue as compensation for Hell's objectionable habit of having in possession and of retailing to his friends bad whisky without attending to the little formality of a permit.

The Stopping Place was a rambling shack, or rather a series of shacks, loosely joined together, whose ramifications were found by Hell and his friends to be useful in an emergency.The largest room in the building was the bar, as it was called.Behind the counter, however, instead of the array of bottles and glasses usually found in rooms bearing this name, the shelf was filled with patent medicines, chiefly various brands of pain-killer.Off the bar was the dining-room, and behind the dining-room another and smaller room, while the room most retired in the collection of shacks constituting the Stopping Place was known in the neighborhood as the "snake room," a room devoted to those unhappy wretches who, under the influence of prolonged indulgence in Hell's bad whisky, were reduced to such a mental and nervous condition that the landscape of their dreams became alive with snakes of various sizes, shapes and hues.

To Mandy familiarity had hardened her sensibilities to endurance of all the grimy uncleanness of the place, but to Moira the appearance of the house and especially of the dining-room filled her with loathing unspeakable.

"Oh, Mandy," she groaned, "can we not eat outside somewhere? This is terrible."Mandy thought for a moment.

"No," she cried, "but we will do better.I know Mrs.Macintyre in the manse.I nursed her once last spring.We will go and see her.""Oh, that would not do," said Moira, her Scotch shy independence shrinking from such an intrusion.

"And why not?"

"She doesn't know me--and there are four of us.""Oh, nonsense, you don't know this country.You don't know what our visit will mean to the little woman, what a joy it will be to her to see a new face, and I declare when she hears you are new out from Scotland she will simply revel in you.We are about to confer a great favor upon Mrs.Macintyre."If Moira had any lingering doubts as to the soundness of her sister-in-law's opinion they vanished before the welcome she had from the minister's wife.