The Sagebrusher | Page 3

in
Montany."
"Well, maybe it is," said his friend and neighbor. "Leastways, it's good
enough to run like you mean to run it."
"I'm a-going to run her all right. She's all under wire--the Swede done
that before I bought his quit claim. Can't no sheep get in on me here. I'll
bet you all my clothes that I'll cut six hundred ton of hay this
season--leastways I would if my horse hadn't hurt hisself in the wire the
other day. Now, you figure up what six hundred ton of hay comes to in
the stack, at prices hay is bringing now."
"Trouble is, your hay ain't in the stack, Sim. You'll just about cut hay
enough to buy yourself flour and bacon for next winter, and that'll be
about all. If you worked the place right you'd make plenty fer to----"
"Fer to be human?"
"Well, yes, that's about it, Sim."
"That's right hard--doing all your own work outside and doing all your
own cooking and everything all the time in your own house. Just living
along twenty years one day after another, all by your own self, and
never--never----"
His voice trailed off faintly, and he left the sentence unfinished. Wid
Gardner completed it for him.

"And never having a woman around?" said he.
"Ain't it the truth?" said Sim Gage suddenly. His eyes ran furtively
around the room in which they sat, taking in, without noting or feeling,
the unutterable squalor of the place.
"Well," said his friend after a time, rising, "it'd be a fine place to fetch a
woman to, wouldn't it? But now I got to be going--I got my chores to
do."
"What's your hurry, Wid?" complained the occupant of the cabin.
"Cow'll wait."
"Yours might," said the other sententiously. As he spoke he was
making his way to the door.
The sun was sinking now behind the range, and as he stood for a
moment looking toward the west, he might himself have been seen to
be a man of some stature, rugged and bronzed, with scores of wrinkles
on his leathery cheeks. His garb was the rude one of the West, or rather
of that remnant of the Old West which has been consigned to the dry
farmers and hay ranchers in these modern polyglot days.
Sim Gage, the man who followed him out and stood for a time in the
unsparing brilliance of the evening sunlight, did not compare too well
with his friend. He was a man of absolutely no presence, utterly lacking
attractiveness. Not so much pudgy as shapeless; he had been shapeless
originally. His squat figure showed, to be sure, a certain hardiness and
vigor gained in his outdoor life, but he had not even the rude grace of a
stalwart manhood about him. He sank apologetically into a lax posture,
even as he stood. His pale blue eyes lacked fire. His hair, uneven,
ragged and hay-colored, seemed dry, as though hopeless, discouraged,
done with life, fringing out as it did in gray locks under the edge of the
battered hat he wore. He had been unshaven for days, perhaps weeks,
and his beard, unreaped, showed divers colors, as of a field partially
ripening here and there. In general he was undecided, unfinished--yes,
surely nature must have been undecided as he himself was about
himself.

His clothing was such as might have been predicted for the owner of
the nondescript bed resting on the cabin floor. His neck, grimed, red
and wrinkled as that of an ancient turtle, rose above his bare brown
shoulders and his upper chest, likewise exposed. His only body
covering was an undershirt, or two undershirts. Their flannel
over-covering had left them apparently some time since, and as for the
remnant, it had known such wear that his arms, brown as those of an
Indian, were bare to the elbows. He was always thus, so far as any
neighbor could have remembered him, save that in the winter time he
cast a sheepskin coat over all. His short legs were clad in blue overalls,
so far as their outside cover was concerned, or at least the overalls once
had been blue, though now much faded. Under these, as might be seen
by a glance at their bottoms, were two, three, or possibly even more,
pairs of trousers, all borne up and suspended at the top by an intricate
series of ropes and strings which crossed his half-bare shoulders. One
might have searched all of Sim Gage's cabin and have found on the
wall not one article of clothing--he wore all he had, summer and winter.
And as he was now, so he had been ever since his nearest neighbor
could remember. A picture of indifference, apathy and hopelessness, he
stood, every rag and wrinkle of