The Moccasin Ranch | Page 4

in the store, and to meet some other land-seekers, and Mrs. Burke agreed to stay and get dinner for them all.
During this long forenoon, Rivers exerted himself to prevent her from being lonely. He was busy about the store, but he found time to keep her fire going and to bring water and to tell her of his bachelor life with Bailey. She had never had anything like this swift and smiling service, and she felt very grateful to him. He encouraged her to make some pies and to prepare a "thumping dinner." "It will seem like being married again," he said, with a chuckle.
Burke and Bailey returned at noon to dinner.
"Mrs. Burke, you can sleep in your own ranch to-night," announced Bailey.
"I guess it will be a ranch."
"It'll be new, anyhow," her husband said, with a timid smile.
After dinner she straightened things up a little, and as she got into the wagon she said: "Well, there, Mr. Rivers. You'll have to take care o' things now."
Rivers leered comically, sighed, and looked at his partner. "Bailey, I didn't know what we needed before; I know now. We need a woman."
Bailey smiled. "Go get one. Don't ask a clumsy old farmer like me to provide a cook."
"I'll get married to-morrow," said Rivers, with a droll inflection. They all laughed, and Burke clucked at the team. "Well, good-bye, boys; see you later."
After leaving the ranch they struck out over the prairie where no wagon-wheel but theirs had ever passed. Here were the buffalo trails, deep-worn ruts all running from northwest to southeast. Here lay the white bones of elk in shining crates, ghastly on the fire-blackened sod. Beside the shallow pools, buffalo horns, in testimony of the tragic past, lay scattered thickly. Everywhere could be seen the signs of the swarming herds of bison which once swept to and fro from north to south over the plain, all so silent and empty now.
A few antelope scurried away out of the path, and a wolf sitting on a height gravely watched the teams as if marvelling at their coming. The wind swept out of the west clear and cold. The sky held no shred of cloud. The air was like some all-powerful intoxicant, and when Bailey pointed out a row of little stakes and said, "There's the railroad," their imagination supplied the trains, the wheat, the houses, the towns which were to come.
At the claim Blanche sat on a box and watched the two men as they swiftly built the little cabin which was to be her home. Their hammers rang merrily, and soon she was permitted to go inside and look up at the great sky which roofed it in. This was an emotional moment to her. As she sat there listening to the voices of the men who were drawing this fragile shelter around her, a great awe fell upon her. It seemed as if she had drawn a little nearer to the Almighty Creator of the universe. Here, where no white man had ever set foot, she was watching the founding of her own house. Was it a home? Could it ever be a home?
Swiftly the roof closed over her head, and the floor crept under her feet. The stove came in, and the flour-barrel, and the few household articles which they had brought followed, and as the sun was setting they all sat down to supper in her new home.
The smell of the fresh pine was round them. Geese were flying over. Cranes were dancing down by the ponds, prairie-chickens were booming. The open doorway--doorless yet--looked out on the sea-like plain glorified by the red sun just sinking over the purple line of treeless hills to the west. It was the bare, raw materials of a State, and they were in at the beginning of it.
After Bailey left them the husband and wife sat in silence. When they spoke it was in low voices. It seemed as if God could hear what they said--that He was just there behind the glory of the western clouds.

II
MAY
Day by day the plain thickened with life. Each noon a crowd of land-seekers swarmed about the Moggason Ranch asking for food and shelter, and Blanche, responding to Rivers' entreaties, went down to cook, returning each night to her bed. Rivers professed to be very grateful for her aid.
All ages and sexes came to take claims. Old men, alone and feeble, school teachers from the East, young girls from the towns of the older counties, boys not yet of age--everywhere incoming claimants were setting stakes upon the green and beautiful sod.
Each day the grass grew more velvety green. Each day the sky waxed warmer. The snow disappeared from the ravines. The ice broke up on the Moggason. The ponds disappeared. Plover flew over with wailing