The Virginian | Page 5

not come on my train; it was adrift
somewhere back in the two thousand miles that lay behind me. And by
way of comfort, the baggage-man remarked that passengers often got
astray from their trunks, but the trunks mostly found them after a while.
Having offered me this encouragement, he turned whistling to his
affairs and left me planted in the baggage-room at Medicine Bow. I
stood deserted among crates and boxes, blankly holding my check,
hungry and forlorn. I stared out through the door at the sky and the
plains; but I did not see the antelope shining among the sage-brush, nor
the great sunset light of Wyoming. Annoyance blinded my eyes to all
things save my grievance: I saw only a lost trunk. And I was muttering
half-aloud, "What a forsaken hole this is!" when suddenly from outside
on the platform came a slow voice: "Off to get married AGAIN? Oh,
don't!"
The voice was Southern and gentle and drawling; and a second voice
came in immediate answer, cracked and querulous. "It ain't again. Who
says it's again? Who told you, anyway?"
And the first voice responded caressingly: "Why, your Sunday clothes
told me, Uncle Hughey. They are speakin' mighty loud o' nuptials."

"You don't worry me!" snapped Uncle Hughey, with shrill heat.
And the other gently continued, "Ain't them gloves the same yu' wore
to your last weddin'?"
"You don't worry me! You don't worry me!" now screamed Uncle
Hughey.
Already I had forgotten my trunk; care had left me; I was aware of the
sunset, and had no desire but for more of this conversation. For it
resembled none that I had heard in my life so far. I stepped to the door
and looked out upon the station platform.
Lounging there at ease against the wall was a slim young giant, more
beautiful than pictures. His broad, soft hat was pushed back; a
loose-knotted, dull-scarlet handkerchief sagged from his throat; and one
casual thumb was hooked in the cartridge-belt that slanted across his
hips. He had plainly come many miles from somewhere across the vast
horizon, as the dust upon him showed. His boots were white with it.
His overalls were gray with it. The weather-beaten bloom of his face
shone through it duskily, as the ripe peaches look upon their trees in a
dry season. But no dinginess of travel or shabbiness of attire could
tarnish the splendor that radiated from his youth and strength. The old
man upon whose temper his remarks were doing such deadly work was
combed and curried to a finish, a bridegroom swept and garnished; but
alas for age! Had I been the bride, I should have taken the giant, dust
and all. He had by no means done with the old man.
"Why, yu've hung weddin' gyarments on every limb!" he now drawled,
with admiration. "Who is the lucky lady this trip?"
The old man seemed to vibrate. "Tell you there ain't been no other! Call
me a Mormon, would you?"
"Why, that--"
"Call me a Mormon? Then name some of my wives. Name two. Name
one. Dare you!"

"--that Laramie wido' promised you--'
"Shucks!"
"--only her docter suddenly ordered Southern climate and--"
"Shucks! You're a false alarm."
"--so nothing but her lungs came between you. And next you'd most got
united with Cattle Kate, only--"
"Tell you you're a false alarm!"
"--only she got hung."
"Where's the wives in all this? Show the wives! Come now!"
"That corn-fed biscuit-shooter at Rawlins yu' gave the canary--"
"Never married her. Never did marry--"
"But yu' come so near, uncle! She was the one left yu' that letter
explaining how she'd got married to a young cyard-player the very day
before her ceremony with you was due, and--"
"Oh, you're nothing; you're a kid; you don't amount to--"
"--and how she'd never, never forgot to feed the canary."
"This country's getting full of kids," stated the old man, witheringly.
"It's doomed." This crushing assertion plainly satisfied him. And he
blinked his eyes with renewed anticipation. His tall tormentor
continued with a face of unchanging gravity, and a voice of gentle
solicitude: "How is the health of that unfortunate--"
"That's right! Pour your insults! Pour 'em on a sick, afflicted woman!"
The eyes blinked with combative relish.
"Insults? Oh, no, Uncle Hughey!"

"That's all right! Insults goes!"
"Why, I was mighty relieved when she began to recover her mem'ry.
Las' time I heard, they told me she'd got it pretty near all back.
Remembered her father, and her mother, and her sisters and brothers,
and her friends, and her happy childhood, and all her doin's except only
your face. The boys was bettin' she'd get that far too, give her time. But
I reckon afteh such a turrable sickness as she had, that would