The Exile of The Lariat/Chapter 12

INE o’clock brought Hugh to the ranch where Mrs. Heckle and her son Jimmie took him in hand. Jimmie, a boy of twenty, was deeply impressed by the importance of having in charge the injured nominee for the governorship.

It was a fifty-mile run to Fort Sioux over a road of unbelievable roughness. Hugh made the trip endurable by talking to the boy, telling him of the discovery of the fossil vertebra, and quizzing him regarding any possible fossil remains he might have observed in the bad lands which bordered Big Fang. Jimmie was entirely uninformed but keenly interested, and Hugh found himself describing the fascination of paleontology to the boy with all the enthusiasm with which he had sought to convert his state-wide audiences Jimmie, before the trip was over, announced his intention of exploring the bad lands himself, and when Hugh became governor, of getting Hugh to incorporate all the section he found to be fossil bearing into the reserved area. By the time they drew up at the doctor’s door, Hugh had bound the youngster to him by the heady bonds of hero worship. He sent him on to the Indian Massacre for a few hours’ sleep, after having arranged for him to take Marten back with him to rescue the Dinosaur. Then he gave himself up to the doctor.

It was late in the afternoon before Hugh woke from the sleep into which he finally dropped, after the doctor had helped him to bed in The Lariat. Johnny Parnell was sitting by the cot smoking.

“Well!” said Johnny. “What was the name of that horse that had wings? Don’t you think you’re crowding the old gray stallion to try to make him into one of them?”

“My nomination went to my head,” returned Hugh.

“Or were you working out a new way to solve the woman problem?” Johnny went on. “Lord, Hughie, you sure have all the courage of ignorance! How’s the arm, old timer?”

“It will do,” replied Hugh. “Help me to shave, will you, Johnny? Did Marten get off all right with young Jimmie Heckle?”

“Yes, to both questions,” Johnny threw his cigarette out the window and picked up Hugh’s razor. “Jimmie is the most important man in Wyoming, without doubt. Incidentally, Grafton is back in town and took great interest in Jimmie’s story of your mishap. He knows all about it, even down to the fact that young Heckle is now your partner in the bone-digging business.”

Hugh grunted. “Much good may it do him!” and began his difficult toilet.

Jessie and Miriam returned to Fort Sioux the next day in the Dinosaur, the latter somewhat battle scarred, but, Marten insisted, as good as new. Fort Sioux, what with one aspect and another of Hugh’s private and public affairs, was entirely consumed with curiosity and flocked to meet the returned adventurers. Even Pink was there, still swollen with secret importance and blatant impatience. Hugh, making his way slowly through the crowd, saw Jessie and Miriam leave the machine, and apparently on cordial terms with each other, smile as they greeted Pink. There was no mistaking the popularity of Jessie or, for that matter, of Marten and the Dinosaur. But, in all that crowd, no one but Pink and Principal Jones greeted Miriam. She gave no evidence that she heeded the slight. She stood beside Jessie, looking delicate and very lovely in contrast with Jessie's athletic frame and strong, almost boyish face. Pink, having made way for the school man, stared pop-eyed at Miriam, then apparently with an overwhelming inspiration, he crowded forward again.

“Listen, partner, are you worried about results?" he asked.

Miriam stared at him. “What are you talking about, Mr. Morgan?" she returned, in a voice of such cutting quality that Pink blinked and gasped. Every one within hearing turned to look at him. Hugh, coming up just in time to hear query and counter query, scowled and shouldered Pink aside while he greeted the two women. Pink muttering to himself withdrew among the crowd.

“Any trouble getting out, Miriam?” asked Hugh. “Are you awfully done up?"

“Not a bit, Hughie. I’m quite in shape to go on with my trip. I shall take the six o’clock westward-bound this evening." Miriam spoke in a clear voice that carried far.

“You haven’t much time to waste then," said Hugh, looking at his watch. “Marten, will you bring Miss Page’s suitcase to the station?" He turned back to Miriam. “I’ll walk along with you."

He took her arm and, entirely indifferent to the interested assemblage, he lifted his hat to Jessie, and led Miriam out of the crowd.

“Miriam!" he burst forth, “you can’t go this way! I want to tell you so much more than I could put into the letters!"

Miriam gave him a curious glance, then smiled whimsically. “No one was ever a more inconsistent lover than you, Hughie! But, after all, we understand each other! And nothing matters except that we keep ourselves for each other!”

“No! No! That’s not so! We’re not children to blind ourselves with such generalities. Everything matters, however much we will it not to. Life demands unrelentingly that we get into stride with it and for some of us it seems impossible to meet the demand. That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

Miriam looked up into his face with clear-seeing gray eyes. “Hughie, it’s what I’m fighting to do, get you into that stride. Never forget that, will you?”

Hugh nodded “Your sympathy has saved my soul alive. Without your letters I couldn’t have carried on.”

“And you feel that the carrying on is worth while, Hughie? Tell me that you do.”

Hugh hesitated. “I don’t regret what I’m doing I do regret the necessity for it. No, that’s not true, either.” He paused and looked up at the brilliant canyon walls that so closely hemmed him in. Finally he said slowly, “We’re harassed by desires too big for us, by dreams that belong to the race, not to an individual.”

Miriam’s expression was troubled. For a moment she hesitated for words, then said with sudden firmness, “But I know I am right in my dreams for you.”

Hugh unexpectedly smiled. “There’s nothing like knowing what you want, is there, Miss Assurance?”

Miriam smiled in response. “Nothing indeed, old ‘I would I wot not what!’ Hughie, have I hurt your campaign by coming? I was an idiot. But I really didn’t realize what a little town like Fort Sioux could do to a woman.”

“It’s without mercy once its thumbs are down for woman or man,” said Hugh. “I don’t care in the least whether you’ve harmed the campaign or not.”

They had reached the station now, and they said good-by under the frankly watchful eye of the station master. After Miriam’s train had pulled out, Hugh returned to The Lariat, where Mrs. Ellis, Mrs. Morgan and Johnny Parnell were waiting to formulate the pre-election campaign with him.

If this were the story of an election fight, one could follow Hugh and Marten and the Dinosaur through several months of adventure, melodramatic enough to satisfy and satiate an inveterate motion-picture habitué. For Wyoming spent the summer and the early fall in the throes of a fight so complicated and so bitter that echoes of it sounded from coast to coast. And Hugh was the center point on which the contending forces rallied.

In some aspects, it was a sex war, with the old guard determined that the women should not get a grip on legislation such as the passing of the Children’s Code would give them. It was astounding, considering the generally admitted rightness of the code, how bitterly men fought it, how deeply they feared the prestige and power it would give the women. In other aspects, women stood against women. For there is no sex in cupidity, and that section of Wyoming which would be benefited by the Thumb Butte project fought Hugh with consistent venom. The sheep raisers, the homesteaders, the mining men resented the rallying of the cattlemen to Hugh’s banner, and within these groups actually comprising most of the male population of Wyoming, to say nothing of the wives and daughters, raged a particular and concentrated form of guerrilla warfare that smacked of the days of Sioux insurrections.

For the first few weeks of the campaign there was, as Mrs. Ellis had prophesied, a great deal of nasty innuendo about Hugh and Miriam that for a time caused not a little disaffection among the women. But the opposition overplayed their hand in meanness and the reaction that Mrs. Morgan had foreseen set in, the women coming to the rescue of the Gray Stallion’s moral character with a gusto that caused this method of attack to be dropped very suddenly. Mrs. Ellis was relieved, but her fears were not entirely laid and she said so to Mrs. Morgan. Whereupon Mrs. Morgan made a forecast. And for the only time in the history of the campaign. Mrs. Ellis agreed with her without reservation. Said Mrs. Morgan:

“We can elect him, in spite of the Page woman. But after he is governor, he’ll have to drop her. No one in the state will stand for domestic complications in the life of the state’s chief executive.”

But though the two were in such unique agreement, it is noteworthy that neither of them spoke of the matter to Hugh.

As the summer wore on, Hugh grew unutterably weary of the muck of the fight. His ears tired of the sound of hand-clapping. His first, half humorous, half cynical amusement in turning Pink’s insolent epithet into a party title changed to a contemptuous surprise that he could have been the author of an idea so inane. The exhilaration of mad flights in the Dinosaur high among the eagles became utter tedium. He found his mind turning with increasing longing to the old days of freedom when even Jessie’s constant gibing could not deeply mar the wonder of his work.

But neither Mrs. Ellis nor Marten, who grew to know him best, ever heard him complain. He had set his long jaw for the end in view.

By October his splendid nerves began to show strain, due less perhaps to actual physical exertion than to the more insidious effects of strenuous self-control. Mrs. Ellis watched his increasing symptoms of strain with considerable anxiety and talked with Johnny Parnell about the possibility of giving Hugh a week’s rest. But Hugh refused all suggestions of this order.

One of the most important of all of Hugh’s speaking engagements had been the most difficult to procure. It was in the town of Lone Spring, the center of the powerful Mormon community, and known to be hostile to the Gray Stallion. Big Elijah Nelson, the most influential Mormon in Wyoming, lived in Lone Spring. It had been he who had held the town against Hugh. And it was Johnny Parnell, with his powerful backing of cattle raisers, who finally won a most grudging consent from Big Elijah for Hugh to speak in the Lone Spring school-house, which was the town center. A tremendous amount hung on this consent, for if Hugh succeeded in carrying Lone Spring, he would carry the whole southwest section of the state.

The day of the speech, late in October, dawned astonishingly mild for the time of year. The first snows were long overdue. An unwonted delicate blue haze lay along the crest of the canyon walls when Hugh reached the hangar. He hurried to Marten’s cabin, surprised that the airman was not ready to start on the trip. To his chagrin he found Marten too ill to fly. It was nothing more serious than indigestion, but the poor fellow had worked himself into a temperature at the thought of leaving Hugh in the lurch, and begged him to delay the trip.

Hugh, however, was entirely obdurate. He was thoroughly at home now with the Dinosaur, and the hard-won speaking engagement was much too important to be inferfered with by any one’s attack of indigestion. He sympathized with Marten, but went about tuning up the engine without delay.

“Look out for snow,” was Marten’s last contribution. “This is a weather breeder!”

Hugh nodded and adjusted his helmet. He was about to climb aboard when Doc Olson galloped up, pulling his horse to its haunches beside the Dinosaur. He thrust a package into Hugh’s hand, talking rapidly, but what he was saying was drowned by the terrific noise of the engine. All that Hugh could make out were the words, “Dr Blackson—Lone Spring,” and he nodded and thrust the parcel into the breast pocket of his tunic.

He was due to reach Lone Spring at five o’clock that afternoon. But at five o’clock the Dinosaur and Hugh were battling for life fifteen thousand feet in the air, in the worst blizzard that Hugh ever had experienced. It came upon him about three o’clock, a Niagara of driving ice pellets, just as he had sent the Dinosaur upward to avoid the highest peak of the range. He might have made a landing at Indian Wells, which lay at the foot of the peak. But as the idea occurred to Hugh, he shook his head. “I’ll get on with the war,” he thought grimly. And he drove through a Hades of wind and snow.

For an endless time it seemed to Hugh that the Dinosaur was as helpless as a feather before a gale. Now it dropped in vacuum. Now it whirled in a cyclone spiral of ice pellets. Now it drove ahead, irresistibly forced by the wind behind. Now it hung motionless, held by the motor against a solid wall of opposing wind and snow.

Finally, when it seemed to Hugh that his numbed hands could do no more, without warning the snow cleared and the Dinosaur shot into open moonlight. The range, by a miracle, had been crossed and a moonlit valley lay below. Hugh nosed the Dinosaur carefully downward. They were above a dense forest. He lifted the weary plane slowly and cruised carefully westward, a storm-tossed vessel, seeking harbor. This was the Forest Reserve to the south of the range. Somewhere between its west border and a triple-headed peak known as the Mormon Wives lay the little town Hugh was seeking. He cruised for a long half-hour before he spied a spot of orange light below.

“Thank God for that!” he thought. “They are looking for me,” and he began a careful descent.

He landed without mishap, running swiftly across the snow-covered plains to the huge log fire that blazed before the schoolhouse door. A dozen hands pulled him from the Dinosaur. Hugh saw as in a red haze a crowd of men, women and children surging about him. He swayed dizzily on his feet and was caught by a tall, bearded man in mackinaw and high riding boots.

“Stewart, did you bring the medicine?” cried the man in a voice of indescribable anxiety.

“In my tunic!” Hugh helplessly indicated his breast pocket.

The man, one arm about Hugh’s shoulders, extracted the package, suddenly clasped Hugh to him, crying, “Thank you! Thank you!” and running through the crowd, leaped upon a horse and was gone into the moonlit night.

The crowd began to shout. “Now then, three cheers for the Gray Stallion!” and for a moment pandemonium reigned. Then while the shouts still echoed in the snow laden silence of the neighboring hills, the crowd fell upon Hugh, clasping his hands, pounding him on the back and gradually moving him into the warmth of the school-house.

“But look here!” protested Hugh, with a grin, as they placed him near the stove and gave him a steaming cup of coffee, “this isn’t the kind of welcome you led me to expect down here.”

“We’d ’a’ welcomed the devil if he’d done what you done, Stewart,” said a grizzled Mormon. “That boy is more to Big Elijah than his wife or his five daughters or his three ranches.”

“He’ll have a fighting chance now,” said a little woman who stood in front of Hugh, expectantly holding the coffee pot. “Doc said if he could get the anti-toxin within twenty-four hours after he telephoned to Fort Sioux he’d save him.”

“Elijah Nelson has a son who’s sick, eh?” asked Hugh.

“His only boy’s got diphtheria,” replied the woman; then she added, looking at Hugh wonderingly, “Didn’t you know that?”

Hugh shook his head. “I just knew that I was carrying some medicine from Doc Olson to your doctor down here.”

“And you didn’t know it was life or death for Big Elijah’s son?” demanded Ike Turner, the grizzled Mormon.

“No,” answered Hugh, apologetically. “Doc gave it to me the last minute. The motor made such a racket I couldn’t hear anything but Blackson’s name.”

There was a sudden silence in the room, packed to the door though it was.

“And you didn’t know it was life or death?” insisted Turner.

Again Hugh shook his head.

“Then,” demanded Turner, “why didn’t you stop at Indian Wells instead of fighting through that blizzard up in the mountains? You must have made the Wells early in the afternoon. And that was the god-awfulest storm these parts has showed up for years.”

“I wish I could claim credit with Big Elijah.” Hugh’s voice was regretful. “But, as a matter of fact, all that I thought when I reached Indian Wells was ‘Let’s get on with the war,’ and I came on through.”

“You came on through!” repeated Turner in an awe-struck voice. “And we thought you was just one of these kind of sissy professor fellows!” He turned to the breathless room. “Folks, here’s a guy that just ‘came on through’ because he had a date here—as near as I can make out, that’s his only reason.” He turned back to Hugh “Did you notice any storm up there, Stewart?” this with a broad grin.

“You can bet there was a storm!” exclaimed Hugh. “The worst I’ve ever seen. Toward the last I thought the end had come for the little old Dinosaur. In fact, during the last four hours, it was a gamble. I’m not so much of a driver, you know.”

“He ain’t so much of a driver!” repeated Turner to the crowd. “But he just came on through—through a life and death fight up there alone in hell—why, gosh dam you, Stewart, you’re a man!” He gave Hugh a blow on the back that seemed to set loose the room in an uproar of cheers and applause.

Hugh shook his head, his eyes turning appealingly from one to another.

Finally the woman with the coffee pot succeeded in making herself heard.

“Why not let him go to bed and make his speech tomorrow?”

“Right!” exclaimed Turner. “You’re to stay at my house, Stewart. It’s right beyond the schoolhouse here.”

He hustled Hugh out the rear door and across the snowy fields to a log house, from which a welcoming light shone. And Hugh slept until the tardy autumn sun was well above the mountains the next morning.

Big Elijah appeared while Hugh was at breakfast. He strode up to put a big white cowman’s hand on Hugh’s shoulder.

“The boy will live,” he said.

Hugh lifted his tired face to stare deep into the Mormon father’s eyes. “I’m glad,” he returned simply.

Big Elijah’s face twisted convulsively. “You sabez, Stewart, that he’s my only son, the only boy in a big connection and that nothing but anti-toxin could save him.”

Hugh nodded. “They told me last night. Too bad I was delayed by the storm.”

The Mormon’s grip on Hugh’s shoulder tightened. “Stewart, you don’t have to make any speech here. You’ve got Lone Spring hanging from your saddle now.”

“You know I don’t deserve such gratitude, Nelson. I didn’t know it was your son, or really, that any one was seriously sick.”

A grin suddenly appeared on Big Elijah’s serious face. “Sure, I know it—Governor! You don’t have to make a speech down here. Gosh, you can have your bone corral if you want it, or anything else the Mormons can get you in Wyoming.”

“He sure can!” exclaimed Ike, who came in to hear Big Elijah’s last statement. “But, Elijah, you’d ought to let him make the speech. He’s the kind of a nice fool that won’t think he’s earned our vote if he don’t.”

“All right,” agreed Big Elijah, then added, looking at Hugh keenly, “but just a short one. Some bad strain coming through that storm, eh, Stewart?”

“A little!” Hugh grinned in his turn. “But not as much of a strain as trying to save a ‘bone corral.’”

Both his hearers laughed and left him to finish his breakfast in the quiet of the kitchen.

Thus it was that the Mormon vote was made solid for the Gray Stallion.