The Sagebrusher | Page 6

Davidson was too much astonished to speak, and he blundered on.
"Folks has done such things," said he.
"You offer me a somewhat difficult problem," rejoined the other, "since
I do not in the least understand what you desire to do."
"Well, it's this away, ma'am. There's papers that prints these
ads--sometimes big dailies does, they tell me--where folks advertises
for acquaintances just fer to get acquainted, you know--'acquaintance
with a view to matrimony' is the way they usually say it--and that may
be a tip fer you--I mean about this here ad I want you to write. Why,
folks has got married that way, plenty of 'em--I'll bet there ain't more'n
half the homesteaders in this state out here, leastways in the sagebrush
country, that didn't get married just that way--it's the onliest way they
can get married, ma'am, half the time.
"Once, up in Helleny, years ago, right after the old Alder Gulch placer
mining days, there was eleven millionaires, each of 'em married to a
Injun woman, and not one of them women could set on a chair without
falling off. Now, there wasn't no papers then like this one here, or them
millionaires might of done better."
She gasped, unable to speak, her lips rotund and pursed, and he went on
with more assertiveness.
"They turn out just as good as any marriages there is," said he. "I've
knowed plenty of 'em. There's three in this valley--although they don't

say much about it now. I know how they got acquainted, all right."
"And you desire me to aid you in your endeavor to entr-r-r-ap some
foolish woman?"
"They don't have to answer. They don't have to get married if they don't
want to. You can't tell how things'll turn out."
"Indeed! Indeed!"
"Well, now, I was just hoping you would write the ad, that's all. Just
you write me a ad like you was a sagebrusher out here in this country,
and you was awful lonesome, and had a good ranch, and was
kind-hearted--and not too good-looking--and that you'd be kind to a
woman. Well, that's about as far as I can go. I was going to leave the
rest to you."
Mrs. Davidson's lips still remained round, her forehead puckered. She
leaned ponderously, fell forward into her weighty walk.
"I make no promise, sir-r-r!" said she, as she veered in passing.
But still, human psychology being what it is, and woman's curiosity
what it also is, and Mrs. Davidson being after all woman, that evening
when Wid Gardner passed out to his gate, he found pinned to the
fastening stick an envelope which he opened curiously. He spelled out
the words:
"Wanted: A Wife. A well-to-do and chivalrous rancher of abundant
means and large holdings in a Western State wishes to correspond with
a respectable young woman who will be willing to appreciate a good
home and loving care. Object--matrimony."
Wid Gardner read this once, and he read it twice. "Good God
A'mighty!" said he to himself. "Sim Gage!"
He turned back to his cabin, and managed to find a corroded pen and
the part of a bottle of thickened ink. With much labor he signed to the

text of his enclosure two initials, and added his own post office route
box for forwarding of any possible replies. Then he addressed a dirty
envelope to the street number of the eastern city which appeared on the
page of his matrimonial journal. Even he managed to fish out a curled
stamp from somewhere in the wall pocket. Then he sat down and
looked out the door over the willow bushes shivering in the evening air.
"'Chivalerous!'" said he. "'Well-to-do! A good home--and loving care!'
If that can be put acrosst with any woman in the whole wide world, I'll
have faith again in prospectin'!"
CHAPTER III
FIFTY-FIFTY
It was late fall or early winter in the city of Cleveland. An icy wind,
steel-tipped, came in from the frozen shores of Lake Erie, piercing the
streets, dark with soot and fog commingled. It was evening, and the
walks were covered with crowded and hurrying human beings seeking
their own homes--men done with their office labors, young women
from factories and shops. These bent against the bitter wind, some
apathetically, some stoutly, some with the vigor of youth, yet others
with the slow gait of approaching age.
Mary Warren and her room-mate, Annie Squires, met at a certain street
corner, as was their daily wont; the former coming from her place in
one of the great department stores, the other from her work in a factory
six blocks up the street.
"'Lo, Mollie," said Annie; and her friend smiled, as she always did at
their chill corner rendezvous. They found some sort of standing room
together in a crowded car,