0,49 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Heart's Desire," Emerson Hough crafts a poignant exploration of human longing and the complexities of desire set against the backdrop of the American frontier. Through evocative prose layered with rich imagery, Hough delves into themes of love, ambition, and the quest for meaning in an unforgiving landscape. The narrative intertwines the lives of its characters, revealing their intertwined fates amid the social and environmental challenges of turn-of-the-century America. Hough's literary style reflects influences of naturalism, emphasizing the characters' struggles and triumphs while also embodying the rugged spirit of the era, effectively painting a tapestry of human emotion linked to the land itself. Emerson Hough, an accomplished novelist and advocate of the American experience, draws upon his own experiences in the Midwest to inform the authentic settings and nuanced characters of "Heart's Desire." His background as a journalist and his intrinsic understanding of the American landscape enrich the narrative, allowing readers to immerse themselves in the intertwining of personal and cultural histories. Hough was known for his passionate depiction of the American spirit, which shines through in this work. I wholeheartedly recommend "Heart's Desire" to readers who appreciate deeply human stories rooted in history and the complexities of the human soul. Hough's masterful storytelling not only entertains but also invites reflection on the dreams and aspirations that drive us all. This novel is a must-read for anyone seeking a profound understanding of the heart's true yearnings.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
Ähnliche
Heart's Desire
Table of Contents
THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE
This being in Part the Story of Curly, the Can of Oysters, and the Girl from Kansas
CHAPTER II
THE DINNER AT HEART'S DESIRE
This continuing the Relation of Curly, the Can of Oysters, and the Girl from Kansas; and introducing Others
CHAPTER III
TRANSGRESSION AT HEART'S DESIRE
Beginning the Cause Celebre which arose from Curly's killing the Pig of the Man from Kansas
CHAPTER IV
THE LAW AT HEART'S DESIRE
Continuing the Story of the Pig from Kansas, and the Deep Damnation of his Taking Off
CHAPTER V
EDEN AT HEART'S DESIRE
This being the Story of a Paradise; also showing the Exceeding Loneliness of Adam
CHAPTER VI
EVE AT HEART'S DESIRE
How the Said Eve arrived on the Same Stage with Eastern Capital, to the Interest of All, and the Embarrassment of Some
CHAPTER VII
TEMPTATION AT HEART'S DESIRE
Showing how Paradise was lost through the Strange Performance of a Craven Adam
CHAPTER VIII
THE CORPORATION AT HEART'S DESIRE
This being the Story of a Parrot, Certain Twins, and a Pair of Candy Legs
CHAPTER IX
CIVILIZATION AT HEART'S DESIRE
How the Men of Heart's Desire surrendered to the Softening Seductions of Croquet and Other Pastimes
CHAPTER X
ART AT HEART'S DESIRE
How Tom Osby, Common Carrier, caused Trouble with a Portable Annie Laurie
CHAPTER XI
OPERA AT HEART'S DESIRE
Telling how Two Innocent Travellers by Mere Chance collided with a Side-tracked Star
CHAPTER XII
THE PRICE OF HEART'S DESIRE
Concerning Goods, their Value, and the Delivery of the Same
CHAPTER XIII
BUSINESS AT HEART'S DESIRE
This describing Porter Barkley's Method with a Man, and Tom Osby's Way with a Maid
CHAPTER XIV
THE GROUND FLOOR AT HEART'S DESIRE
Proposing Certain Wonders of Modern Progress, as wrought by Eastern Capital and Able Corporation Counsel
CHAPTER XV
SCIENCE AT HEART'S DESIRE
This being the Story of a Cow Puncher, an Osteopath, and a Cross-eyed Horse
CHAPTER XVI
THE PARTITION OF HEART'S DESIRE
Concerning Real Estate, Love, Friendship, and Other Good and Valuable Considerations
CHAPTER XVII
TREASON AT HEART'S DESIRE
Showing the Dilemma of Dan Anderson, the Doubt of Leading Citizens, and the Artless Performance of a Pastoral Prevaricator
CHAPTER XVIII
THE MEETING AT HEART'S DESIRE
How Benevolent Assimilation was checked by Unexpected Events
CHAPTER XIX
COMMERCE AT HEART'S DESIRE
Showing Wonders of the Thirst of McGinnis, and the Faith of Whiteman the Jew
CHAPTER XX
MEDICINE AT HEART'S DESIRE
How the Girl from the States kept the Set of Twins from being broken
CHAPTER XXI
JUSTICE AT HEART'S DESIRE
The Story of a Sheriff and Some Bad Men; showing also a Day's Work, and a Man's Medicine
CHAPTER XXII
ADVENTURE AT HEART'S DESIRE
The Strange Story of the King of Gee-Whiz, and his Unusual Experience in Foreign Parts
CHAPTER XXIII
PHILOSOPHY AT HEART'S DESIRE
Showing further the Uncertainty of Human Events, and the Exceeding Resourcefulness of Mr. Thomas Osby
CHAPTER XXIV
THE CONSPIRACY AT HEART'S DESIRE
This being the Story of a Sheepherder, Two Warm Personal Friends, and their Love-letter to a Beautiful Queen
CHAPTER XXV
ROMANCE AT HEART'S DESIRE
The Pleasing Recountal of an Absent Knight, a Gentle Lady, and an Ananias with Spurs
CHAPTER XXVI
THE GIRL AT HEART'S DESIRE
The Story of a Surprise, a Success, and Something Else Very Much Better
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Frontispiece: "He looked up—to see her standing at his door!"
"'The umpire decides that you've got to check your guns during the game.'"
"A voice which sang of a face that was the fairest, and of a dark blue eye."
"'Something has got to be did, and did mighty blame quick.'"
HEART'S DESIRE
CHAPTER I
THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE
This being in Part the Story of Curly, the Can of Oysters, and the Girl from Kansas
"It looks a long ways acrost from here to the States," said Curly, as we pulled up our horses at the top of the Capitan divide. We gazed out over a vast, rolling sea of red-brown earth which stretched far beyond and below the nearer foothills, black with their growth of stunted pines. This was a favorite pausing place of all travellers between the county-seat and Heart's Desire; partly because it was a summit reached only after a long climb from either side of the divide; partly, perhaps, because it was a notable view-point in a land full of noble views. Again, it may have been a customary tarrying point because of some vague feeling shared by most travellers who crossed this trail,—the same feeling which made Curly, hardened citizen as he was of the land west of the Pecos, turn a speculative eye eastward across the plains. We could not see even so far as the Pecos, though it seemed from our lofty situation that we looked quite to the ultimate, searching the utter ends of all the earth.
"Yours is up that-a-way;" Curly pointed to the northeast. "Mine was that-a-way." He shifted his leg in the saddle as he turned to the right and swept a comprehensive hand toward the east, meaning perhaps Texas, perhaps a series of wild frontiers west of the Lone Star state. I noticed the nice distinction in Curly's tenses. He knew the man more recently arrived west of the Pecos, possibly later to prove a backslider. As for himself, Curly knew that he would never return to his wild East; yet it may have been that he had just a touch of the home feeling which is so hard to lose, even in a homeless country, a man's country pure and simple, as was surely this which now stretched wide about us. Somewhere off to the east, miles and miles beyond the red sea of sand and grama grass, lay Home.
"And yet," said Curly, taking up in speech my unspoken thought, "you can't see even halfway to Vegas up there." No. It was a long two hundred miles to Las Vegas, long indeed in a freighting wagon, and long enough even in the saddle and upon as good a horse as each of us now bestrode. I nodded. "And it's some more'n two whoops and a holler to my ole place," said he. Curly remained indefinite; for, though presently he hummed something about the sun and its brightness in his old Kentucky home, he followed it soon thereafter with musical allusion to the Suwanee River. One might have guessed either Kentucky or Georgia in regard to Curly, even had one not suspected Texas from the look of his saddle cinches.
It was the day before Christmas. Yet there was little winter in this sweet, thin air up on the Capitan divide. Off to the left the Patos Mountains showed patches of snow, and the top of Carrizo was yet whiter, and even a portion of the highest peak of the Capitans carried a blanket of white; but all the lower levels were red-brown, calm, complete, unchanging, like the whole aspect of this far-away and finished country, whereto had come, long ago, many Spaniards in search of wealth and dreams; and more recently certain Anglo-Saxons, also dreaming, who sought in a stolen hiatus of the continental conquest nothing of more value than a deep and sweet oblivion.
It was a Christmas-tide different enough from that of the States toward which Curly pointed. We looked eastward, looked again, turned back for one last look before we tightened the cinches and started down the winding trail which led through the foothills along the flank of the Patos Mountains, and so at last into the town of Heart's Desire.
"Lord!" said Curly, reminiscently, and quite without connection with any thought which had been uttered. "Say, it was fine, wasn't it, Christmas? We allus had firecrackers then. And eat! Why, man!" This allusion to the firecrackers would have determined that Curly had come from the South, which alone has a midwinter Fourth of July, possibly because the populace is not content with only one annual smell of gunpowder. "We had trees where I came from," said I. "And eat! Yes, man!"
"Some different here now, ain't it?" said Curly, grinning; and I grinned in reply with what fortitude I could muster. Down in Heart's Desire there was a little, a very little cabin, with a bunk, a few blankets, a small table, and a box nailed against the wall for a cupboard. I knew what was in the box, and what was not in it, and I so advised my friend as we slipped down off the bald summit of the Capitans and came into the shelter of the short, black pinons. Curly rode on for a little while before he made answer.
"Why," said he, at length, "ain't you heard? You're in with our rodeo on Christmas dinner. McKinney, and Tom Osby, and Dan Anderson, the other lawyer, and me,—we're going to have Christmas dinner at Andersen's 'dobe in town to-morrer. You're in. You mayn't like it. Don't you mind. The directions says to take it, and you take it. It's goin' to be one of the largest events ever knowed in this here settlement. Of course, there's goin' to be some canned things, and some sardines, and some everidge liquids. You guess what besides that."
I told him I couldn't guess.
"Shore you couldn't," said Curly, dangling his bridle from the little finger of his left hand as he searched in his pocket for a match. He had rolled a cigarette with one hand, and now he called it a cigarrillo. These facts alone would have convicted him of coming from somewhere near the Rio Grande.
"Shore you couldn't," repeated Curly, after he had his bit of brown paper going. "I reckon not in a hundred years. Champagne! Whole quart! Yes, sir. Cost eighteen dollars. Mac, he got it. Billy Hudgens had just this one bottle in the shop, left over from the time the surveyors come over here and we thought there was goin' to be a railroad, which there wasn't. But Lord! that ain't all. It ain't the beginnin'. You guess again. No, I reckon you couldn't," said he, scornfully. "You couldn't in your whole life guess what next. We got a cake!"
"Go on, Curly," said I, scoffingly; for I knew that the possibilities of Heart's Desire did not in the least include anything resembling cake. Any of the boys could fry bacon or build a section of bread in a Dutch oven—they had to know how to do that or starve. But as to cake, there was none could compass it. And I knew there was not a woman in all Heart's Desire.
Curly enjoyed his advantage for a few moments as we wound on down the trail among the pinons. "Heap o' things happened since you went down to tend co'te," said he. "You likely didn't hear of the new family moved in last week. Come from Kansas."
"Then there's a girl," said I; for I was far Westerner enough to know that all the girls ever seen west of the Pecos came from Kansas, the same as all the baled hay and all the fresh butter. Potatoes came from Iowa; but butter, hay, and girls came from Kansas. I asked Curly if the head of the new family came from Leavenworth.
"'Course he did," said Curly. "And I'll bet a steer he'll be postmaster or somethin' in a few brief moments." This in reference to another well-known fact in natural history as observed west of the Pecos; for it was matter of common knowledge among all Western men that the town of Leavenworth furnished early office-holders for every new community from the Missouri to the Pacific.
Curly continued; "This feller'll do well here, I reckon, though just now he's broke a-plenty. But what was he goin' to do? His team breaks down and he can't get no further. Looks like he'd just have to stop and be postmaster or somethin' for us here for a while. Can't be Justice of the Peace; another Kansas man's got that. As to them two girls—man! The camp's got on its best clothes right this instant, don't you neglect to think. Both good lookers. Youngest's a peach. I'm goin' to marry her." Curly turned aggressively in his saddle and looked me squarely in the eye, his hat pushed back from his tightly curling red hair.
"That's all right, Curly," said I, mildly. "You have my consent. Have you asked the girl about it yet?"
"Ain't had time yet," said he. "But you watch me."
"What's the name of the family?" I asked as we rode along together.
"Blamed if I remember exactly," replied Curly, scratching his head, "but they're shore good folks. Old man's sort o' pious, I reckon. Anyhow, that's what Tom Osby says. He driv along from Hocradle cañon with 'em on the road from Vegas. Said the old man helt services every mornin' before breakfast. More services'n breakfast sometimes. Tom, he says old Whiskers—that's our next postmaster—he sings a-plenty, lifts up his voice exceeding. Say," said Curly, turning on me again fiercely, "that's one reason I'd marry the girl if for nothing else. It takes more'n a bass voice and a copy of the Holy Scriptures to make a Merry Christmas. Why, man, say, when I think of what a time we all are going to have,—you, and me, and Mac, and Tom Osby, and Dan Anderson, with all them things of our'n, and all these here things on the side—champagne and all that,—it looks like this world ain't run on the square, don't it?"
I assured Curly that this had long been one of my own conclusions. Assuredly I had not the bad manners to thank him for his invitation to join him in this banquet at Heart's Desire, knowing as I did Curly's acquaintance with the fact that young attorneys had not always abundance during their first year in a quasi-mining camp that was two-thirds cow town; such being among the possibilities of that land. I returned to the cake.
"Where'd we git it?" said Curly. "Why, where'd you s'pose we got it? Do you think Dan Anderson has took to pastry along with the statoots made and pervided? As for Dan, he ain't been here so very long, but he's come to stay. We're goin' to send him to Congress if we ever get time to organize our town, or find out what county we're in. How'd our Delergate look spreadin' jelly cake? Nope, he didn't make it. And does it look any like Mac has studied bakery doin's out on the Carrizoso ranch? You know Tom Osby couldn't. As for me, if hard luck has ever driv me to cookin' in the past, I ain't referrin' to it now. I'm a straight-up cow puncher and nothin' else. That cake? Why, it come from the Kansas outfit.
"Don't know which one of 'em done it, but it's a honey," he went on. "Say, she's a foot high, with white stuff a inch high all over. She's soft around the aidge some, for I stuck my finger intoe it just a little. We just got it recent and we're night-herdin' it where it's cool. Cost a even ten dollars. The old lady said she'd make the price all right, but Mac and me, we sort of sized up things and allowed we'd drop about a ten in their recepticle when we come to pay for that cake. This family, you see, moved intoe the cabin Hank Fogarty and Jim Bond left when they went away,—it's right acrost the 'royo from Dan Anderson's office, where we're goin' to eat to-morrer.
"Now, how that woman could make a cake like this here in one of them narrer, upside-down Mexican ovens—no stove at all—no nothing—say, that's some like adoptin' yourself to circumstances, ain't it? Why, man, I'd marry intoe that fam'ly if I didn't do nothing else long as I lived. They ain't no Mexican money wrong side of the river. No counterfeit there regardin' a happy home—cuttin' out the bass voice and givin' 'em a leetle better line of grass and water, eh? Well, I reckon not. Watch me fly to it."
The idiom of Curly's speech was at times a trifle obscure to the uneducated ear. I gathered that he believed these newcomers to be of proper social rank, and that he was also of the opinion that a certain mending in their material matters might add to the happiness of the family.
"But say," he began again shortly, "I ain't told you half about our dinner."
"That is to say—" said I.
"We're goin' to have oysters!" he replied.
"Oh, Curly!" objected I, petulantly, "what's the use lying? I'll agree that you may perhaps marry the girl—I don't care anything about that. But as to oysters, you know there never was an oyster in Heart's Desire, and never will be, world without end."
"Huh!" said Curly. "Huh!" And presently, "Is that so?"
"You know it's so," said I.
"Is that so?" reiterated he once more. "Nice way to act, ain't it, when you're ast out to dinner in the best society of the place? Tell a feller he's shy on facts, when all he's handin' out is just the plain, unfreckled truth, for onct at least. We got oysters, four cans of 'em, and done had 'em for a month. They're up there." He jerked a thumb toward the top of old Carrizo Mountain. I looked at the snow, and in a flash comprehended. There, indeed, was cold storage, the only cold storage possible in Heart's Desire!
"Tom Osby brought 'em down from Vegas the last time he come down," said Curly. "They're there, sir, four cans of 'em. You know where the Carrizo spring is? Well, there's a snowbank in that cañon, about two hundred yards off to the left of the spring. The oysters is in there. Keep? They got to keep!
"Them's the only oysters ever was knowed between the Pecos and the Rio Grande," he continued pridefully. "Now I want to ask you, friend, if this ain't just a leetle the dashed blamedest, hottest Christmas dinner ever was pulled off?"
"Curly," said I, "you are a continuous surprise to me."
"The trouble with you is," said Curly, lighting another cigarette, "you look the wrong way from the top of the divide. Never mind about home and mother. Them is States institooshuns. The only feller any good here is the feller that comes to stay, and likes it. You like it?"
"Yes, Curly," I replied seriously, "I do like it, and I'm going to stay if I can."
"Well, you be mighty blamed careful if that's the way you feel about it," said Curly. "I got my own eye on that girl from Kansas, and I serve notice right here. No use for you or Mac or any of you to be a-tryin' to cut out any stock for me. I seen it first."
We dropped down and ever down as we rode on along the winding mountain trail. The dark sides of the Patos Mountains edged around to the back of us, and the scarred flanks of big Carrizo came farther and farther forward along our left cheeks as we rode on. Then the trail made a sharp bend to the left, zigzagged a bit to get through a series of broken ravines, and at last topped the low false divide which rose at the upper end of the valley of Heart's Desire.
It was a spot lovely, lovable. Nothing in all the West is more fit to linger in a man's memory than the imperious sun rising above the valley of Heart's Desire; nothing unless it were the royal purple of the sunset, trailed like a robe across the shoulders of the grave unsmiling hills, which guarded it round about. In Heart's Desire it was so calm, so complete, so past and beyond all fret and worry and caring. Perhaps the man who named it did so in grim jest, as was the manner of the early bitter ones who swept across the Western lands. Perhaps again he named it at sunset, and did so reverently. God knows he named it right.
There was no rush nor hurry, no bickering nor envying, no crowding nor thieving there. Heart's Desire! It was well named, indeed; fit capital for the malcontents who sought oblivion, dreaming, long as they might, that Life can be left aside when one grows weary of it; dreaming—ah! deep, foolish, golden dream—that somewhere there is on earth an Eden with no Eve and without a flaming sword!
The town all lay along one deliberate, crooked street, because the arroyo along which it straggled was crooked. Its buildings were mostly of adobe, with earthen roofs, so low that when one saw a rainstorm coming in the rainy season (when it rained invariably once a day), he went forth with a shovel and shingled his roof anew, standing on the ground as he did so. There were a few cabins built of logs, but very few. Only one or two stores had the high board front common in Western villages. Lumber was very scarce and carpenters still scarcer. How the family from Kansas had happened to drift into Heart's Desire—how a man of McKinney's intelligence had come to settle there—how Dan Anderson, a very good lawyer, happened to have tarried there—how indeed any of us happened to be there, are questions which may best be solved by those who have studied the West-bound, the dream-bound, the malcontents. At any rate, here we were, and it was Christmas-time. The very next morning would be that of Christmas Day.
CHAPTER II
THE DINNER AT HEART'S DESIRE
This continuing the Relation of Curly, the Can of Oysters, and the Girl from Kansas; and Introducing Others
There were no stockings hung up in Heart's Desire that Christmas Eve, for all the population was adult, male, and stern of habit. The great moon flooded the street with splendor. Afar there came voices of rioting. There were some adherents to the traditions of the South in regard to firecrackers at Yuletide, albeit the six-shooter furnished the only firecracker obtainable. Yet upon that night the very shots seemed cheerful, not ominous, as was usually the case upon that long and crooked street, which had seen duels, affairs, affrays,—even riots of mounted men in the days when the desperadoes of the range came riding into town now and again for love of danger, or for lack of aguardiente. It was so very white and solemn and content,—this street of Heart's Desire on Christmas Eve. Far across the arroyo, as Curly had said, there gleamed red the double windows of the cabin which had been preempted by the man from Leavenworth. To-night the man from Leavenworth sat with bowed head and beard upon his bosom.
Christmas Day dawned, brilliant, glorious. There was not a Christmas tree in all Heart's Desire. There was not a child within two hundred miles who had ever seen a Christmas tree. There was not a woman in all Heart's Desire saving those three newcomers in the cabin across the arroyo. Yet these new-comers were acquainted with the etiquette of the land. There was occasion for public announcement in such matters.
At eleven o'clock in the morning the man from Leavenworth and the Littlest Girl from Kansas came out upon the street. They were ostensibly bound to get the mail, although there had been no mail stage for three days, and could be none for four days more, even had the man from Leavenworth entertained the slightest thought of getting any mail at this purely accidental residence into which the fate of a tired team had thrown him. Yet there must be the proper notification that he and his family had concluded to abide in Heart's Desire; that he was now a citizen; that he was now entitled by the length of his beard to be called "'Squire," and to be accepted into all the councils of the town. This walk along the street was notice to the pure democracy of that land that all might now leave cards at the cabin across the arroyo. One need hardly doubt that the populace of Heart's Desire was lined up along the street to say good morning and to receive befittingly this tacit pledge of its newest citizen. Moreover, as to the Littlest Girl, all Heart's Desire puffed out its chest. Once more, indeed, the camp was entitled to hold up its head. There were Women in the town! Ergo Home; ergo Civilization; ergo Society; and ergo all the rest. Heretofore Heart's Desire had wilfully been but an unorganized section of savagery; but your Anglo Saxon, craving ever savagery, has no sooner found it than he seeks to civilize it; there being for him in his aeon of the world no real content or peace.
"I reckon the old man is goin' to take a look at the post-office to see how he likes the place," said Curly, reflectively, as he gazed after the gentleman whom he had frankly elected as his father-in-law. "He'll get it, all right. Never saw a man from Leavenworth who wasn't a good shot at a postoffice. But say, about that Littlest Girl—well, I wonder!"
Curly was very restless until dinner-time, which, for one reason or another, was postponed until about four of the afternoon. We met at Dan Anderson's law office, which was also his residence, a room about a dozen feet by twenty in size. The bunks were cleaned up, the blankets put out of the way, and the centre of the room given over to a table, small and home-made, but very full of good cheer for that time and place. At the fireplace, McKinney, flushed and red, was broiling some really good loin steaks. McKinney also allowed his imagination to soar to the height of biscuits. Coffee was there assuredly, as one might tell by the welcome odor now ascending. Upon the table there was something masked under an ancient copy of a newspaper. Outside the door of the adobe, in the deepest shade obtainable, sat two soap boxes full of snow, or at least partly full, for Tom Osby had done his best. In one of these boxes appeared the proof of Curly's truthfulness—three cans of oysters, delicacies hitherto unheard of in that land! In the other box was an object almost as unfamiliar as an oyster can,—an oblong, smooth, and now partially frost-covered object with tinfoil about its upper end. A certain tense excitement obtained.
"I wonder if she'll get frappe enough," said Dan Anderson. He was a Princeton man once upon a time.
"It don't make no difference about the frappy part," said Curly, "just so she gets cold enough. I reckon I savvy wine some. I never was up the trail, not none! No, I reckon not! Huh?"
We agreed on Curly's worldliness cheerfully; indeed, agreed cheerfully that all the world was a good place and all its inhabitants were everything that could be asked. Life was young and fresh and strong. The spell of Heart's Desire was upon us all that Christmas Day.
"Now," said Curly, dropping easily into the somewhat vague position of host, when McKinney had finally placed his platter of screeching hot steaks upon the table. "Now, then, grub pi-i-i-i-le!" He sang the summons loud and clear, as it has sounded on many a frosty morning or sultry noon in many a corner of the range. "Set up, fellers," said Curly. "It's bridles off now, and cinches down, and the trusties next to the mirror." (By this speech Curly probably meant that the time was one of ease and safety, wherein one might place his six-shooter back of the bar, in sign that he was in search of no man, and that none was in search of him. It was not good form to eat in a private family in Heart's Desire with one's gun at one's belt.)
We sat down and McKinney uncovered the cake which had been made by the wife of the man from Leavenworth. It appeared somewhat imposing. Curly wanted to cut into it at the first course, but Dan Anderson rebelled and coaxed him off upon the subject of oysters. There was abundance for all. The cake itself would have weighed perhaps five or six pounds. There was a part of a can of oysters for each man, any quantity of wholesome steaks and coffee, with condensed milk if one cared for it, and at least enough champagne for any one who cared for precisely that sort of champagne.
It was nightfall before we were willing to leave the little pine table. Meantime we had talked of many things; of the new strike on the Homestake, of the vein of coal lately found in the Patos, of Apache rumors below Tularosa, and other matters interesting to citizens of that land. We mentioned an impending visit of Eastern Capital bent upon investigating our mineral wealth. We spoke of the vague rumor that a railroad was heading north from El Paso, and might come close to Heart's Desire if all went well; and, generous in the enthusiasm of the hour, we builded upon that fancy, ending by a toast to Dan Anderson as our first delegate to Congress. Dan bowed gravely, not knowing the future any more than ourselves. Nor should it be denied that there was talk of the new inhabitants across the arroyo. The morning promenade of the man from Leavenworth had been productive of results; add to these the results of so noble a feast as this Christmas dinner of ours, and it was foregone that our hearts must expand to include in welcome all humanity west of the Pecos.
After all, no man is better than the prettiest woman in his environment. As to these girls from Kansas, it is to be said that there had never before been a real woman in Heart's Desire. You, who have always lived where there is law, and society, and women, and home,—you cannot know what it is to see all these things gradually or swiftly dawning upon your personal horizon. Yet this was the way of Heart's Desire, where women and law and property were not.
It was perhaps the moon, or perhaps youth, or perhaps this state of life to which I have referred. Assuredly the street was again flooded with a grand, white moonlight, bright almost as a Northern day, when we looked out of the little window.
Dan Anderson was the first to speak, after a silence which had fallen amidst the dense tobacco smoke. "It cost us less than fifteen dollars a plate," said he. "I've paid more for worse—yes, a lot worse. But by the way, Mac, where's that other can of oysters? I thought you said there were four."
"That's what I said," broke in Tom Osby. "I done told Mac I ought to bring 'em all down, but he said only three."
"Well," said McKinney, always a conservative and level-headed man, "I allowed that if they would keep a month, they would keep a little longer. Now you all know there's goin' to be a stage in next week, and likely it'll bring the president of the New Jersey Gold Mills, who's been due here a couple of weeks. Now here we are, hollerin' all the time for Eastern Capital. What's the right thing for us to do when we get any Eastern Capital into our town? This here man comes from Philadelphy, which I reckon is right near the place where oysters grows. What are you goin' to do? He's used to oysters; like enough he eats 'em every day in the year, because he's shore rich. First thing he hollers for when he gets here is oysters. Looks like you all didn't have no public spirit. Are we goin' to give this here Eastern man the things he's used to, kinder gentle him along like, you know, and so get all the closeter and easier to him, or are we goin' to throw him down cold, and leave him dissatisfied the first day he strikes our camp? It shore looks to me like there ain't but one way to answer that."
"And that there one answer," said Tom Osby, "is now a-reclinin' in the snowbank up on Carrizy."
"I reckon that's so, all right, Mac," assented Curly, reflectively. "I could have et one more oyster or so, but I can quit if it's for the good of the country."
"Well, I'm feeling just a little bit guilty as it is," said Dan Anderson, who was in fairly good post-prandial condition. "Here we are, eating like lords. Now who knows what that poor family from Kansas is having for Christmas dinner? Mac, I appoint you a committee of one to see how they are getting along. Pass the hat. Make it about ten for the cake. Come on, now, let's find out about these folks."
Curly was distinctly unhappy all the time McKinney was away. It was half an hour before the latter came back, but the look on his face betrayed him. Dan Anderson made him confess that he still had the ten dollars in his pocket, that he had been afraid to knock at the door, and that he had learned nothing whatever of the household from Kansas. McKinney admitted that his nerve had failed, and that he dared not knock, but he said that he had summoned courage enough to look in at the window. The family had either finished its dinner long ago, had not eaten, or did not intend to eat at all. "The table looked some shy," declared McKinney. Beyond this he was incoherent, distressed, and plainly nervous. Silence fell upon the entire group, and for some time each man in Dan Andersen's salon was wrapped in thought. Perhaps each one cast a furtive look from the tail of his eye at his neighbors. Of all present, Curly seemed the happiest. "Didn't see the Littlest Girl?" he asked. McKinney shook his head.
"Well, I guess I'll be gettin' up to see about my wagon before long," said Tom Osby, rising and knocking his pipe upon his boot-heel. "I've got a few cans of stuff up here in my load that I don't really need. In the mornin', you know—well, so long, boys."
"I heard that Jim Peterson killed a deer the other day," suggested Dan Anderson. "I believe I'll just step over and see if I can't get a quarter of venison for those folks."
"Shore," said McKinney, "I'll go along. No, I won't; I'll take a pasear acrost the street and have a look at a little stuff I brung up from the ranch yesterday."
"No Christmas," said Curly, staring ahead of himself into the tobacco smoke, and indulging in a rare soliloquy. "No Christmas dinner—and this here is in Ameriky!"
It is difficult to tell just how it occurred; but presently, had any one of us turned to look about him, he must have found himself alone. The moonlight streamed brilliantly over the long street of Heart's Desire. . . . The scarred sides of old Carrizo looked so close that one might almost have touched them with one's hand. . . .
It was about three miles from the street, up over the foot-hills, along the fiat cañon which debouched below the spring where lay the snowbank. There were different routes which one could take. . . .
I knew the place very well from Curly's description, and found it easy to follow up the trickle of water which came down the cañon from the spring. Having found the spring, it was easy to locate the spot in the snowbank where the oysters had been cached. I was not conscious of tarrying upon the way, yet, even so, there had been feet more swift than mine. As I came up to the spring, I heard voices and saw two forms sitting at the edge of the snowbank.
"Here's another one!" called out Dan Anderson as I appeared; and forthwith they broke into peals of unrighteous laughter. "You're a little slow; you're number three; Mac was first."
"I thought I heard an elk as I came up," said I, as I sat down beside the others and tried to look unconcerned, although plainly out of breath.
"Elk!" snorted McKinney, as he arose and walked to the other edge of the snowbank. "Here's your elk tracks." McKinney, foreman on Carrizoso, was an old range-rider, and he was right. Here was the track, plunging through the snow, and here was a deep hole where an elk, or something, had digged hurriedly, deeply, and, as it proved, effectively.
"Elk!" said McKinney again, savagely. "Damn that cow puncher! He took to his horse, 'course he did, and not one of us thought of ridin'. Who'd ever think a man would ride up here at all, let alone at night? Come on, fellers, we might as well go home."
"Well, I'm pleased to have met you, gentlemen," said Anderson, lighting a philosophic pipe, "and I don't mind walking back with you. It's a trifle lonesome in the hills after dark. Why didn't you tell me you were coming up?" He grinned with what seemed to us bad taste.
When we got down across the foot-hills and into the broad white street of Heart's Desire, we espied a dark figure slowly approaching. It proved to be Tom Osby, who later declared that he had found himself unable to sleep. He had things in his pockets. By common consent we now turned our footsteps across the arroyo, toward the cabin where dwelt the family from Kansas.
The house of the man from Leavenworth was lighted as though for some function. There were no curtains at the windows, and even had there been, the shock of this spectacle which went on before our eyes would have been sufficient to set aside all laws and conventions. With hands in pockets we stood and gazed blankly in at the open window. There was a sound of revelry by night. The narrow Mexican fireplace again held abundance of snapping, sparkling, crooked pinon wood. The table was spread. At its head sat the next postmaster; near him a lately sorrowful but now smiling lady, his wife, the woman from Kansas. The elder daughter was busy at the fire. At the right of the man from Leavenworth sat none less than Curly, the same whose cow pony, with bridle thrown down over its head, now stood nodding in the bright flood of the moonlight of Heart's Desire. At the side of Curly was the Littlest Girl from Kansas, and she was looking into his eyes.
It was thus that the social compact was first set on in the valley of Heart's Desire.
A vast steaming fragrance arose from the bowl which stood at the head of the table. In the home of the girl from Kansas there was light, warmth, comfort, joy. It was Christmas, after all.
"By the great jumpin' Jehossophat!" said Tom Osby, "them's our oysters!"
"And to think," mused Dan Anderson, softly, as we turned away,—"we fried ours!"
CHAPTER III
TRANSGRESSION AT HEART'S DESIRE
Beginning the Cause Celebre which arose from Curly's killing the Pig of the Man from Kansas
A great many abdomens have been injured in the pastime known as the "double roll." Especially has this been the case with persons not native to the land of Heart's Desire or the equivalent thereof. Even those born to the manner, and possessed of the freedom of a vast landscape whose every particular was devoted to the behoof of any man seized with a purpose of attaining speed and efficiency with firearms, did not always reach that smoothness and precision in the execution of this personal manoeuvre which alone could render it safe to themselves or impressive to the beholder. The owner of this accomplishment was never apt to find himself much crowded with company, in the way either of participants or spectators. Yet the art was a simple and harmless one, pertaining more especially to youth, enthusiasm, and the fresh air of high altitudes, which did ever evoke saltpetreish manifestations.
The evolution of the "double roll" is executed by taking a six-shooter—let us hope not one of those pitiful toys of the East—upon each forefinger, each weapon so hanging balanced on the trigger-guard and the trigger itself that it shall be ready to turn about the finger as upon a pivot, and shall be ready for instant discharge, the thumb cocking the weapon as it turns; yet so that it shall none the less be discharged only when the muzzle of the weapon is pointed away from the operator's person and not toward it.
