Judith of the Plains | Page 9

down to
Rawlins--shot a man he thought was with Simpson, but who
wasn't--and he's been in jail ever since. Course now that he's out
Simpson's bound to get peppered. Glad it didn't happen here, though.
'Twould be a kind of unpleasant thing to have connected with a
eating-house, don't you think so?" she inquired, with the grim
philosophy of the country.
The eating-house patrons had gone their several ways, and the quiet of
the dining-room was oppressive by contrast with its late boisterousness.
Mrs. Clark, her hands imprisoned in bread-dough, begged Mary to look
over the screen door and see if anything was happening. "I'm always
suspicious when it's quiet. I know they're in deviltry of some sort."
Mary tiptoed to the door and peeped over, but the room was deserted,
save for Simpson, huddled in a corner, biting his finger-nails. "The
nasty thing!" exploded Mrs. Clark, when she had received the bulletin.
"I'd turn him out if it wasn't for the notoriety he might bring my place
in gettin' killed in front of it."
"I dare say I'd better go and see after my trunk; it's still on the station
platform." Mary wondered what her prim aunts would think of her for
sitting in Mrs. Clark's kitchen, but it had seemed so much more of a
refuge than the sordid streets of the hideous little town, with its droves
of men and never a glimpse of a woman that she had been only too glad
to avail herself of the invitation of the proprietress to "make herself at
home till the stage left."
"Well, good luck to you," said Mrs. Clark, wiping her hand only
partially free from dough and presenting it to Miss Carmichael. She had
not inquired where the girl was going, nor even hinted to discover
where she came from, but she gave her the godspeed that the West
knows how to give, and the girl felt better for it.

At the station, where Mary shortly presented herself, in the interest of
that old man of the sea of all travellers, luggage, she learned that the
stage did not leave town for some three-quarters of an hour yet. A
young man, manipulating many sheets of flimsy, yellow paper covered
with large, flourishing handwriting, looked up in answer to her
inquiries about Lost Trail. This young man, whose accent, clothes, and
manner proclaimed him "from the East," whither, in all probability, he
would shortly return if he did not mend his ways, disclaimed all
knowledge of the place as if it were an undesirable acquaintance. But
before he could deny it thrice, a man who had heard the cabalistic name
was making his way towards the desk, the pride of the traveller
radiating from every feature.
The cosmopolite who knew Lost Trail was the type of man who is born
to be a Kentucky colonel, and perhaps may have achieved his destiny
before coming to this "No Man's Land," for reasons into which no one
inquired, and which were obviously no one's business. They knew him
here by the name of "Lone Tooth Hank," and he wore what had been,
in the days of his colonelcy--or its equivalent--a frock-coat, restrained
by the lower button, and thus establishing a waist-line long after nature
had had the last word to say on the subject. With this he wore the
sombrero of the country, and the combination carried a rakish effect
that was positively sinister.
The scornful clerk introduced Mary as a young lady inquiring about
some place in the bad-lands. Off came the sombrero with a sweep, and
Lone Tooth smiled in a way that accented the dental solitaire to which
he owed his name. Miss Carmichael, concealing her terror of this
casual cavalier, inquired if he could tell her the distance to Lost Trail.
"I sho'ly can, and with, consid'able pleasure." The sombrero completed
a semicircular sweep and arrived in the neighborhood of Mr. Hank's
heart in significance of his vassalage to the fair sex. He proceeded:
"Lost Trail sutney is right lonesome. A friend of mine gets a little too
playful fo' the evah-increasin' meetropolitan spirit of this yere camp,
and tries a little tahget practice on the main bullyvard, an' finds the
atmospheah onhealthful in consequence. Hearin' that the quiet solitude

of Lost Trail is what he needs, he lit out with the following
circumstance thereof happenin'. One day something in his harness giv'
way--and he recollects seein' a boot sunnin' itself back in the road 'bout
a quartah of a mile. An' he figgahs he'll borry a strip of leather off the
boot to mend his harness. Back he goes and finds it has a kind of
loaded feelin'. So my friend investigates--and I be blanked if there
wasn't a foot and leg inside of it."
Miss