The Plow-Woman. Gates Eleanor
plant a store anyway, when the track comes."
"Yas, certainly," said Lancaster. He passed Dallas, giving her a helpless, apprehensive stare. "But, shucks! Ah wouldn' be in sech a tarnel hurry, ef Ah was you. Spring's plenty o' time."
Lounsbury swung round sharply. "Spring!" he exclaimed in amazement. "I hope that hasn't been your plan, sir. A man can't file too soon."
Dallas leaned toward Lounsbury again, and her lips parted. But a quick, peremptory gesture from her father interrupted. "Mar'lyn," he cried, his eyes warning the elder girl, "look out fer thet coffee; it's a-bilin' over."
And Dallas saw that her father did not trust the storekeeper—perhaps feared him—and that he did not wish his own neglect to be known.
But a hint of the state of affairs at the shack had already entered Lounsbury's mind. As Marylyn rose to pour the coffee, he quickly changed the subject. "Fort 's a quiet place, these days," he observed, accepting a cup. "Wonder when the troops'll be back."
The section-boss sipped at his saucer. "Ah don' carry on no dealin's with Yankee soldier trash," he answered curtly. "They keep they side o' th' river, an' we-all keep ourn."
Lounsbury laughed. "Well," he said, "you'll find when the redskins get nasty that the army blue looks pretty good."
The other shrugged.
The storekeeper tapped the holster hanging upon a thigh. "I carry a pop-gun regular." He set down the cup, pulled at his boot-legs and arose.
"Ah reckon Ah c'n hol' my own, sah." Lancaster's pride was touched.
"No doubt of it," assured the younger man, preparing to go. "I hope," he continued, "that you'll call on me at any time—if you need more provisions, say."
Lancaster did not misunderstand the offer of credit. "Thank y'," he replied stiffly, "but we certainly got 'nough t' las' through."
Lounsbury remembered how small—compared with the orders of other wintering settlers—was the Lancaster stock; and thought, too, how likely it was that every passerby would be fed with true Southern hospitality, thus diminishing the supply. But he refrained from making any further suggestion. He bade the family good-by, lingering a little at parting beside the younger girl.
"Miss Marylyn," he said, "before another winter you'll be the belle of the town of Lancaster."
She put her hand in his bashfully.
"And, Miss Dallas?" His voice entreated a little.
"I hope you'll be the biggest storekeeper," she said.
To Lounsbury's surprise, he saw a trace of fun lurking in her eye. "Ah! you've forgiven me!" he declared triumphantly.
But she made no answer as she turned away.
The next moment he was galloping toward the coulée crossing.
Marylyn watched him go. When, having disappeared into the ravine, he came into sight again on the farther side, he turned in his saddle and saw her. He took off his hat and waved it. She answered with a farewell signal, and stood, looking after him, until distance dwarfed horse and rider to a dot.
On the storekeeper's departure, the shack became a scene of action. Lancaster gave over walking the floor and collected bedding for a journey. Marylyn was called in to prepare a box of food for her father—potatoes from the coals of the fireplace, cured pig-meat from the souse-barrel, bread, and a jug of coffee. While Dallas caught the mules, gave them some grain and a rubbing-down with straw wisps, and greased the wagon wheels. All being made ready, the section-boss took leave of his daughters, urging them to keep within the next day when the surveyors came up, and to deny his going. Then, with Ben and Betty at a smart trot, he set off for Bismarck and the land-office.
When he was gone, the squat shack on the bend became vigilant. Ceaselessly its eyes covered the stretch of road between ferry-landing and coulée—ceaselessly, though Dallas alone kept watch for wayfarers. Not until night fell, and the cloud-masked moon disappeared behind the western bluffs, were small blankets pinned into place across the windows, and the peering shock head made sightless.
But even with the house darkened, the early supper eaten and Marylyn asleep in her bed before the hearth, the elder girl still kept on the alert. A nervousness born of loneliness had taken possession of her. If the doorlatch rattled, she raised herself, listening. If Simon rubbed himself against the warm outer stones of the fireplace, she sprang up, a startled sentinel, with wide eyes and clenched hands.
But an hour passed. The wind lulled. Simon lay down. She fell to thinking of the storekeeper. She felt surer than ever, now, that he did not covet the bend. Setting aside the fact that he had brought them good news, she was glad he had come. It gave them a neighbour. And, yes, she forgave him the smile that had provoked her resentment. After all, the name Dallas did sound Texas.
With morning, and the rising of the sun, she was up and doing the few chores about lean-to and shack. But when the surveyors arrived, making short work of their last few miles, she and Marylyn shut themselves in and escaped being seen. The engineers gone toward Clark's, Dallas again took up her watch.
Twice before night she was rewarded. The mail-sergeant passed, bringing a batch of letters to a grateful post; and, late in the afternoon, an Indian runner came into sight from up the Missouri. Scorning to use the ferry, he dropped into the river, where the coulée emptied, and swam across.
The arrival of the scout Dallas associated instinctively with the expected return of the troopers, and felt a relief that she would not have cared to confess to her father. The unusual bustle that marked the next three days at Brannon seemed to justify her belief. Below the barracks, on the level bottom-land, men were busy erecting a strange structure. Tall cottonwoods were hauled from the river and set on end in the sandy ground. As time passed, these came to form a tight, circular pen.
The night of the third day there was activity on the other bank of the Missouri. Unknown to shack and fort, the squalid line of shanty saloons that stretched itself like a waiting serpent along a high bench opposite the new stockade, sprang into sudden life. Two wagons filled with men and barrels crossed the bend and emptied themselves into the dilapidated buildings. And far into the early hours, loud laughter, the click of chips and the clink of glasses disturbed the quiet of the night. At dawn, an officer, standing, field-glass in hand, on the gallery at headquarters, saw two wagons drawn up in front of Shanty Town and called down a curse upon the heads of the sleeping revellers.
"Just see there!" he exclaimed. "Some vermin got wind of the paymaster's coming and are here to fleece the men."
A lieutenant sauntered up, putting out his hand for the glasses. "There wasn't a soul in those huts yesterday," he said.
"No, of course not," sputtered the other. "The devils stayed at Clark's till the punchers got back from Kansas City. Now, they're on hand to keep our guard-house and hospital full. By gad! if I commanded here, I'd have the whole street fired."
"Well," said the lieutenant, "the men have a way of disciplining that kind, themselves. Some day, when a favourite is cut in a brawl or cheated at cards, they'll shoot up the place. If there's anything left, it'll move on."
"It won't do any harm to keep an eye on Shanty Town, all the same," declared his companion, fiercely. "Remember the man that ran it last year? Slick, by gad! Why, the paymaster might just as well have stopped over there—he and his ilk got every cent! He wasn't a 'bad' man, mind you—not brave enough for that, but keen-nosed as a moose, conceited as an Indian——"
"What was his name?"
"Oh, Dick or Vic Something-or-other, I don't know what. He's a bragging renegade, anyway."
Unaware of a reconnoitre, the occupants of the line of shanties slumbered serenely on; and not until noon did high plumes of smoke, straight as the flag-pole on the parade-ground, announce, to the secretly delighted troopers at Brannon, their tardy rising.
Dallas, too, saw the busy chimneys. But while watching them intently from an open window, her