Western Union E-Book

Zane Grey

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026

Beschreibung

It was a summer day in 1861, when I boarded a west-bound stage-coach in Omaha, Nebraska, at the end of my resources and the end of my rope.
I put back in my pocket the newspaper clipping which had been responsible for giving me inspiration at a time when I needed it most. At twenty-four years, everything I had tried had somehow failed to hold me. I had long been in doubt whether or not there was anything really in me.
My father wanted me to try law, so I went to Harvard for a year, then gave that up. Then I tried medicine for a year. No good. I had interest in medicine, but I could not stay indoors and study. Those two frustrated years, however, revealed to me what was the matter. The ambition of my parents and relatives to put me in a profession or if not that, into business, had influenced me against what I really wanted.

Leseprobe

ZANE GREY

WESTERN UNION

© 2026 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782387410481

EDITORIAL

It Can Be Done!

Not so long ago President Abraham Lincoln lifted deep cavernous eyes to his friend and visitor, Hiram Sibley, head of the Western Union Telegraph Company.

“Sibley, wonderful as your idea is, its consummation sounds fantastic and visionary. However, I shall ask Congress for an appropriation.”

Sibley’s idea was to stretch a telegraph wire across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. Long before he knew whether or not Congress would help or if his associates would approve such a project, Sibley sent for his chief engineer, Edward Creighton, who had just returned from a year-long trip to California.

“Here. Look at this map,” Creighton said. “There! That line is the Oregon Trail. We’ll follow it. I’ve talked to ranchers, soldiers, buffalo hunters, Pony Express riders. I’ve talked to the Mormons. There are thousands of hostile savages, millions of buffalo, hundreds of miles of prairie with no trees for telegraph poles. The job figures impracticable and impossible, but it can be done.”

Congress appropriated only $400,000 toward the building of this telegraph line, which was a tremendous disappointment to Sibley and Creighton.

But the building of a telegraph to connect the East and the West is going forward. To-day marks the beginning of the stringing of that tiny iron wire westward out of Omaha, with Creighton himself in charge.

Chapter One

It was a summer day in 1861, when I boarded a west-bound stage-coach in Omaha, Nebraska, at the end of my resources and the end of my rope.

I put back in my pocket the newspaper clipping which had been responsible for giving me inspiration at a time when I needed it most. At twenty-four years, everything I had tried had somehow failed to hold me. I had long been in doubt whether or not there was anything really in me.

My father wanted me to try law, so I went to Harvard for a year, then gave that up. Then I tried medicine for a year. No good. I had interest in medicine, but I could not stay indoors and study. Those two frustrated years, however, revealed to me what was the matter. The ambition of my parents and relatives to put me in a profession or if not that, into business, had influenced me against what I really wanted.

I needed to get away from Boston and New England, out somewhere in the open country, preferably the West, where I would be free. My mother was Scotch and she said that I was like one of her brothers who was a Highlander and loved the hills and the rivers and the fights of his own country.

Outside of being big and strong and active on my feet, I had no qualifications that I knew of for pioneer life in the West. Nevertheless, it was the West that called increasingly to me.

Then I had been troubled about the rumblings of war between the North and the South. Now it was a fact. My father was a Southerner by birth and strong in his feelings against the Yankees.

I did not feel that I would not have made a good soldier because there was something about a soldier’s free life for adventure and danger that appealed to me.

Still, with my parents split on the issues of a Civil War, I seemed between the devil and the deep sea. So altogether my dissatisfaction and unhappiness drove me to undertake the long journey to the West.

As I looked around me, I suddenly noticed that I was the first person aboard the stage. In fact, even the driver himself was nowhere about. But finally the other passengers began to arrive.

There were two soldiers, one a sergeant; weather-beaten, hard young men, who were evidently recovering from too close an intimacy with the bottle. There was a keen-eyed man whom I took to be a rancher, and a buxom woman who was evidently his wife. Another passenger had climbed to the driver’s seat. The last one, to judge from his garb and florid face, might have been a well-to-do merchant. He took the seat beside me.

As we were about to roll into the open country a clamor of friendly voices arose, bidding us good-by; no doubt some of our well-wishers actually knew some of the passengers, but from the wave of sound that arose, I could see that the departure of this creaking vehicle was an event for the townspeople; and I seemed to feel that some of the good-bys ringing in my ears were for me.

The Platte River ran to our left. The channel was wide and was composed of two swift muddy streams separated by sand bars and flats. The low banks were lined with willow and cottonwoods just beginning to be clothed with bright green. I had my second glimpse of the great wide Missouri River running bank full, its strong swirling current showing numerous bits of driftwood. I saw a stern wheel steamboat in the distance.

Soon we were out of sight of the river and the town, rolling along at a good clip over a hard-packed road which seemed to run in the center of a number of roads. In fact, there was a wide space of perhaps a hundred yards which had been cut several feet deep by the endless stream of wheels that had passed. There were old wheel tracks and fresh wheel tracks on each side of our hard-packed road.

I gathered, presently, that we were bound out on a branch of the Overland Trail, which was the Oregon Trail, for years the thoroughfare from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon. We would come into the main Oregon Trail at Grand Island.

My seat was next to the open window through which I gazed at the winding stream and the level gray plain extending into what appeared to be infinitude. At intervals we passed ranches and scattered cattle, but we were on the edge of wild country. I saw wild ducks on the stream, blue heron standing in the shallows, muskrat houses sticking out of the water, an increasing number of jackrabbits and cottontails, and an occasional gray bushytailed animal of distinctly wolfish aspect.

I gazed and gazed, without tiring of the gray monotony of the scenery. I did not miss any of the scant conversation of the passengers. Presently the gentleman sitting next to me made several affable remarks as to the weather and the pleasant ride, and finally inquired where I was bound.

“I’m going out to work on the Western Union,” I replied.

“Indeed! That is very interesting. I’m on my way out to take a look at the work myself. My name is Williamson.”

“I’m glad to meet you, sir. My name is Wayne Cameron, from Boston.”

“I thought as much,” replied the other, with a laugh. “New Englanders are rather easy to tab. Myself, I’m from New York. What sort of a job have you got with the telegraph company?”

“I haven’t any—yet . . . but I hope to get one.”

“You won’t find much trouble on that score—what—with the war and all, they’re finding it hard to get men anyway.”

We struck up a conversation, and I tried to make myself as agreeable as possible. One thing Williamson said was that construction work had already started from the Pacific coast under an engineer named Gamble who was to build the telegraph line East to meet Edward Creighton’s crew, who, by this time, had almost strung their threadlike iron wire to Gothenburg.

Presently Williamson resumed conversation. “Cameron, are you familiar with Creighton’s trip across the plains and the mountains to study the land and conditions?”

“Yes, I read about it,” I replied. “I think it was heroic.”

“It was that and more. I have never met Creighton and I’m very glad that I am going to meet him shortly. From all accounts, he is a wonderful character. Some of the lines he built in the East were not easy jobs by a long ways, but this western idea is beyond conjecture. I heard Hiram Sibley tell about Creighton’s trip across the divide to the coast. It really beggared description. He rode six or seven hundred miles via horseback over some of the wildest country. All alone and not sure of his direction. Part of that journey was accomplished in mid-winter through the Humboldt Valley. The hard winds drove sand and alkali dust and snow into the eyes of the lone rider until he was almost blind. Three times the skin peeled from Creighton’s face. When he arrived in Carson City he was more dead than alive. Marvelous indeed that he did not perish! But his superb constitution and indomitable will enabled him to carry on to the end.”

I turned often to glance at the telegraph line to which Williamson had long since called my attention. The shining yellow peeled poles, the single thread of wire stretching away westward—these seemed somehow to be so little, so insignificant, so frail, to carry the tremendous weight and importance of rapid communication between the East and West. But it was all there in that thin wire—the magic message of Hiram Sibley’s friend, the inventor Morse.

By sundown we arrived at a commodious ranch house where we were to spend the night.

In the morning, we were soon away again rolling westward along the Oregon Trail, sometimes within sight of the Platte River and always with wide and increasing stretches of prairie land from ranch to ranch. By and by, somebody told me, there would not be any ranches at all.

That night when we made our stop, this time at a hamlet where there were a store and a saloon and a few shacks, I made overtures to the stage-coach driver. I asked him to have a drink with me, and presently found him to be affable enough and most intensely interesting. The passenger who had ridden on the seat with him departed at this station and I eagerly asked to have his place.

Jim Hawkins (that was the driver’s name) had been driving stage-coaches for ten years, and I simply reveled in the thought of what a mine of information he was and what opportunity I would have while I was with him through the long hours on the driver’s seat.

In the middle of the night, while I lay awake, I heard the strange and melodious honk-honk of wild geese flying north.

I faced the next day’s drive high on the driver’s seat in the bright sunlight. The prairie stretched out westward just as gray and hazy as it had been on former days, but it was almost imperceptibly growing to be wild and uninhabitable country. I called the driver’s attention to dust clouds on the horizon and a long irregular line low down along the ground that was new to me.

“Wal, young man,” he replied, “I reckon there ain’t nothin’ the matter with your eyesight. Them sharp eyes of yours, when they learn to know what they see, are gonna save your life some day. Thet’s your first wagon-train. An’ it’s a purty big one. You’ll see plenty of wagon-trains from now on an’ beyond Ft. Kearney; unless it’s a thumpin’ big one, you’ll see they hev an escort of soldiers.”

“That sergeant riding with us told me that the telegraph construction work would have to go on under the guardianship of dragoons. Is that necessary altogether on account of the Indians?”

“Mostly, I’d say,” returned the driver. “The Cheyennes air gettin’ mean again, but they ain’t a marker for the Sioux. You’ll meet them west of Ft. Laramie an’ along the Sweetwater, an’ up toward South Pass. Them Indians ride down out of the Wind River mountains, raid like Comanches, an’ ride back into their hills where no soldiers could find them. All the tribes of redskins hev a grievance against the whites an’ it ain’t no wonder. An’ some day, mebbe in ten years or more, when the whites begin killin’ off the buffalo fer their hides, all the Indians from the Dakotas to the Rio Grande will rise up to fight like the devils they air. Fer the buffalo air their living.”

“But I’ve read that there are millions of buffalo,” I said. “Surely the hunting of buffalo for their meat and hides would not make enough difference in their numbers to inflame the savages.”

“I reckon it would,” rejoined Hawkins, shaking his grizzled head. “Buffalo an’ deer an’ all game would last forever if they were hunted only by the Indians. White men are mostly wasters, as well as bein’ greedy and unscrupulous. I know an old Indian onct who said white men were heap hogs.”

“But there is such a thing as progress,” I protested. “America has to expand. The tide of empire has set toward the West. First came the Spanish missionaries, then the fur traders, then the explorers, then the pioneers and the gold seekers—and now we have the telegraph wire. Just as surely as that is successful there will be railroads crossing the continent.”

“Shore, son, shore you’re right,” replied Hawkins. “Thet’s as true as we’re sittin’ here. But it doesn’t do ’way with the fact thet this was the red man’s country, thet he was depraved by liquor, thet he has been robbed, an’ will go on bein’ robbed until he rebels an’ fights against overwhelmin’ odds until what’s left of him will be driven back into the waste places of the West. Jest how it is in the sight of God, I cain’t reckon. But in mine it shore ain’t a purty picture.”

That dissertation of the old stage-coach driver gave me an entirely new idea of the American Indian.

We rapidly rolled on to catch up with the wagon-train. Before we reached it I took advantage of a bend in the road ahead and counted the big prairie schooners. There were sixty-three of them. They were hauled by yokes of oxen. Along each side men on horseback rode with them. These large prairie schooners seemed alive, and rolled along with the spirit that dominated these pioneers. They looked like big boats mounted on huge wheels and with wide brown canvas tops. Here and there, however, were wagons that did not have a canvas cover. Some were on one side of the wide Oregon Trail and some on the other.

As we caught up with them Hawkins slackened somewhat the brisk gait of his teams. Still that was fast enough to pass by the prairie schooners as if they were stationary. The huge oxen wagged to and fro with their heads bent; the drivers’ seats, beside the driver himself, were usually loaded with children and young people, and here and there a woman.

As we went by with Hawkins and some of the passengers in the coach cheerily calling, the pioneers returned the expressions of good will and good luck. The round aperture under the canvas hood was almost in every case enlivened by one or more young women. The riders on horseback, mostly traveling alone, were sturdy men in the crude habiliments of pioneers. I waved my hat at the youngsters.

As we drove by one of the big prairie schooners, I espied a pretty girl sitting beside a stalwart, gray-headed driver. Her eyes met mine as we drove alongside for a moment and I felt that I should not soon forget them or the luster of her rippling hair. I waved my sombrero at her and she smiled and raised a gauntleted hand. Then she was gone back out of sight and wagon by wagon took the place of the one she had ridden in. I looked and looked but somehow the great zest for me did not continue. I would have liked to have the stage-coach drive alongside that particular prairie schooner all the rest of the day. But we rolled on.

I felt a pang when I realized that there was a girl that I could have liked and would surely never see again.

Toward the front end of the wagon-train the horsemen were more numerous, and half a dozen or more with long rifles over their saddles led the caravan.

We passed on ahead of the wagon-train and again faced the endless plain. Occasionally I still looked back and finally, when the wagon-train disappeared in the distance, I sighed and looked no more. That girl had interested me. I would not soon forget the flash of her eyes, the flush that came to her cheeks, the shine of her chestnut hair, and that friendly wave of hand.

Chapter Two

Nothing in the next several days took the thrilling place of that wagon-train. Grand Island, where we arrived one night after dark, seemed like all the other Nebraska stops, only there were more buildings, more lights and more people. Here we joined the main Oregon Trail which was deeper and broader.

Our next stop was Ft. Kearney where we lost our soldier passengers. It appeared to be just a barracks and I was disappointed.

We rolled on west of Kearney. One day I saw a moving dot away along the road and thin puffs of dust so far away that I could not make out what they were.

“Driver, what’s that coming?” I asked.

“Wal, if I’m kerrect,” he replied, after a long squint down the road, “thet’ll be Jed Schwartz. Along here is where he usually passes me. He’s a Pony Express rider.”

My curiosity mounted in proportion. I had heard of the heroism of the Pony Express riders and now I saw one, swiftly bearing down upon us. In this rarefied western atmosphere, objects looked very much closer than they actually were. It was amazing how that moving black spot enlarged until it stood out in the outline of a horse and rider. As he drew closer I saw that the horse was stretched out, running low and level, his mane and tail flying, and the rider’s scarf burned in the sunlight and waved out behind him.

Hawkins guided his teams to the right and gave the Express rider an open road. He bore down on us like the wind and as he flashed by, too swiftly for me to see anything clearly, he waved his gloved hand at Hawkins and yelled a greeting. The driver answered just as lustily.

I turned to watch the horse running down the road. It was a big lean animal, swift and strong, and the way he spread distance between him and the stage-coach was something remarkable to see. It was my first experience with a fast running horse in the West where horses were of cardinal importance. Then in response to my eager inquiries Hawkins said:

“I reckon this here telegraph line you’re goin’ to help build will spell the end of the Pony Express. Some mighty fine fellers will be out of jobs, but I reckon they’ll be glad to quit with their scalps still on. They carry the mail. It costs five dollars an ounce. The riders change horses every ten miles or so an’ they keep their horses on a dead run from one station to another. It takes them eight days to ride from Saint Jo, Missouri, to the Coast. I’ve known some mighty fine fellers on the Pony Express. Jed Schwartz is about the best of the lot. He’s a hard, fearless rider. He packs two guns an’ say, can he use ’em!”

“I’d like to be a Pony Express rider,” I said almost to myself.

“Wal, it’s sort of late in the day now,” replied the driver, who had evidently heard me. “But you’ll get your belly full of ridin’ an’ shootin’ on this Western Union, if I don’t miss my guess.”

Hawkins was loquacious enough to satisfy even an insatiable tenderfoot like me. I asked him a thousand questions and I reserved one to ask him when he got better acquainted with me. That question was—how to comport myself when I once got out on the frontier. I didn’t have courage enough to ask him yet.

Next day we caught up with a small wagon-train hauling telegraph poles. I was thrilled because I knew at last we were approaching our destination. We reached Gothenburg quite a while after dark. The same dull yellow lights, the same dusty road, the same shacks and tents, and high board fronts with which I had become familiar, appeared to compose this town of Gothenburg.

“Son, this is a purty hot place,” admonished Hawkins, with a chuckle. “I wouldn’t advise you to miss seein’ what’s goin’ on, but mind your p’s and q’s. I reckon the construction camp is here or close by and the burg will be lively. You’re shore likely to be taken fer a tenderfoot. Wal, don’t take no backtalk from nobody. When you go into Red Pierce’s gamblin’ hell, if you’ve got any money, look out fer the painted ladies an’ steer clear of the gamin’ tables.”

The tavern which took care of the travelers was unprepossessing from the outside, but inside it proved to be comfortable with a clean room and bed and a supper to which I certainly did ample justice. There were two girls waiting on tables and one of them was decidedly pretty. She had a pair of roguish eyes that she was not afraid to use. She recalled to me the girl of the wagon-train who had smiled and waved at me. I began to grasp that the farther I got away from her the stronger my regret would be.

After supper I thought I would stroll down the street and look things over. As I went out, Williamson accosted me and said with hearty satisfaction:

“Well, Cameron, we’ve arrived. The construction work and Creighton’s traveling camp are only a few miles from here. The town is full of workers. I’ll keep a lookout for Creighton and I’ll tell him about you if he comes into town.”

I thanked him and then went outside on the plank walk and tried to accustom my eyes to the opaque darkness dimly lighted by yellow lamps. There were saddle horses tied to hitching rails in front of the tavern and several vehicles, one of which was a buckboard. I saw a few pedestrians but not enough to account for the noise that seemed to come from the main square down the street.

Presently I walked in that direction and began to encounter a motley string of men, a score or more in all. There were cattlemen and cowboys, but, for the most part, the pedestrians appeared to be laborers.

A little farther on I came to a large, crude-looking edifice constructed of boards and made emphatic by reason of the wide-open door from which bright lights streamed and men were passing in and out. I saw a painted sign above this door with the rude letters spelling “Red Pierce.”

With a decided acceleration of my pulse, I entered my first gambling hall in the West. Whatever I had anticipated was somewhat different from the reality, but I was in no wise disappointed. The place was an enormous hall with three huge lamps strung down the middle and a long bar at the left where men stood two or three deep, drinking and laughing and talking.

To the right, opposite the bar, were a number of tables around which the gamblers were sitting and standing. I heard the rattle of the roulette wheel and the musical clink of coins, but if there were any voices among these players, they were silenced by the louder clamor of those at the bar.

At that juncture there burst out a lively flare of music and I looked down the hall to see a number of men standing around an open space on the floor where several couples were dancing. At that distance the girls appeared to be attractive and showed white faces and scarlet lips and bare arms.

There were spectators at the gambling tables and I joined them to look on for a while. When I tired of this I walked back to the lower end of the hall and watched the dancers. It did not occur to me until one of the girls took particular notice of me, flashing sharp eyes from my boots to my head, that I was surely conspicuous in that crowd. It annoyed me, but remembering Hawkins’ advice, I decided to stand my ground. I regretted that decision presently when the dance ended and one of the girls came up to me. I certainly did not remember ever being looked over as I was then.

“Would you like to dance?” inquired the girl, smiling up at me. She had a nice voice and she did not look at all like a dance-hall girl to me.

“Yes,” I replied diffidently, “but I’m an utter stranger, just got in, and I feel——”

As I hesitated she took my arm and interrupted.

“You’re a stranger all right, but that’s nothing. Strangers come every day. Let’s dance. I’ll soon make you feel at home.”

I was about to surrender to her suggestion, not without pleasurable sensations, when she was rudely torn away from me by a tall dark young man, a rowdy in appearance and certainly under the influence of drink.

“Come on, Ruby,” he said, in a thick voice. “What d’ye mean grabbin’ that tenderfoot? You promised this dance to me.”

He whirled her away, though hardly before I became aware that it was much to the girl’s distaste. She flashed me another smile which was reassuring, to say the least. I did not mind the interruption so much because I really would rather not have danced, but the coarse allusion to my being a tenderfoot rubbed me the wrong way and I thought I’d better make tracks out of that place. And I was going out when something halted me as I said to myself, “No, I’ll be damned if I will! It’s coming to me and I may as well take it and get used to it.”

So I watched the gamblers for a while. I was approached by several men, certainly not workmen, who looked me over with sharp eyes as if they could pierce through my clothes into my pockets. They asked me to participate in this game and that. I declined.

I changed my position to one behind some spectators beside the roulette table and I was unmolested for a while. Then I watched the poker game at another table where there were gold double eagles and rolls of greenbacks in front of each gambler. This was a big game. And the three men sitting with the two black-garbed gamblers certainly were not laborers.

Then my attention was distracted, and so was that of everyone in the hall, by a fight outside on the walk. There were loud voices, scuffling boots, and a gun shot—after which there was silence. The players resumed their gambling and a few men left the bar to peer out the door to see what had caused the excitement. I joined them but could not discover any signs of what had surely been a fight.

Manifestly such commotions as this were commonplace in Gothenburg. Just as commonplace, I observed, was the fact that most of the men present packed guns. I asked a bystander if there were any officers of the law in that town and he laughed at me. That was not so pleasant. I wondered if I should have taken the advice which that driver, Hawkins, had given me about purchasing a gun.

At this juncture, as I was moving away from the gambling tables, I was accosted by three men, one of whom was the rowdy who had snatched the girl off of my arm. He said something to the man in the middle about me being the fellow. This central figure in the trio was a short, low-browed man with prominent eyes and a leering look.

“Stranger hereabouts, huh?” he asked. “What’s your business here?”

“That’s my business,” I replied, tersely.

“Say, stranger, it don’t pay newcomers, specially tenderfeet, to be impolite in these diggin’s.”

“I did not mean to be impolite. I answered you in the tone in which you addressed me.”

“Well, Yankee sticks out all over you, young fella. And if it didn’t stick out, we sure could hear it.”

“Certainly I’m a Yankee,” I replied, beginning to feel heat in my veins.

“Suppose you set up the drinks,” he suggested, insolently.

“I won’t do anything of the kind, and if I buy drinks I’ll choose those with whom I want to drink.”

“See hyar, tenderfoot,” interposed the dark-faced rowdy. “I take that as an insult. And it’s too much comin’ after your gettin’ fresh with my girl.”

“You’re drunk or crazy,” I returned hotly. “I didn’t get fresh with your girl.”

Then without more ado he slapped my face and not by any means lightly. The blow amazed me and, suddenly infuriated, I lunged out and knocked him sprawling to the floor. Some of the gamblers noticed the incident, then reverted to their game, while some watching bystanders laughed. Out of the corner of my eye, as I watched my assailant slowly get up from the floor, I saw two figures come in the door and move around sideways. One figure was tall and slim and the other was short and bow-legged. They passed out of range of my sight, but I had a feeling that they were interested in my encounter with this trio and it worried me to have them pass behind me. But I could not turn then because the center man who had been the first to accost me pulled his gun and extended it low down, almost pointed at my feet.

“Tenderfoot, you’ll order drinks for us and dance a little to boot.”

“Mister, I won’t do anything of the kind,” I rang out at him.

“Aw, yes, you will. Do some fancy steppin’ now or I might hit your leg.”

“You go to hell! Isn’t this a free country out here? What kind of a man are you to threaten me with a gun just because I won’t make myself ridiculous?”

“Dance, tenderfoot,” he howled in fiendish glee, and his gun spouted red and banged at my feet.

I felt the burn of a bullet grazing me above my ankle. I was stunned and suddenly divided between fury and terror. He had attracted the attention of everybody and it was plain he was going to shoot at my feet again. I did not know what to do.

I had no idea how I would have further reacted to that situation but I was spared the painful decision by the cutting in of a cold voice in a single ringing word which in my agitation I could not distinguish. Then a sharp gunshot rang out behind me. With a loud yell the bully dropped his gun clattering to the floor and clapped a hand to his shoulder. I saw blood spurt out between his fingers. He was suddenly transformed into a different man, his face showing an agony of pain and extreme fright.

Then into my sight from one side strode the two figures I had before caught out of the corner of my eye. The tall one held a smoking gun extended and as he stepped, he moved it slightly indicating the door.

“Hombre, thet’s the second time to-day you’ve bothered me,” he drawled in cool, easy, soft speech, with an accent peculiarly southern. “Beware of the third time!”

And again the smoking gun made that slight unmistakable move toward the door. The three desperadoes, if they really were such, were quick to take the hint. One of them picked up the gun from the floor and the three of them hurriedly left the saloon. At that the sudden silence was broken again by the sound of voices and the rattle of the roulette wheel.

I turned away from that last sight of my assailants to confront my rescuer. He was in the act of sheathing the long gun and his peculiarly light eyes were fastened on the men at the bar, some of whom had protested at the fracas.

“Much obliged—you did me a might good turn,” I burst out, as he turned to face me. He had a young, still smooth face, tanned to a gold hue, and I thought it was almost girlish in its singular charm. Then his companion addressed me.

“Thet hombre must hev hit you,” he said. “Yore laig is kinda quiverin’. ’Spose you let me take a look.” And he went down on one knee and ran his hands over my left leg. “Ahuh, hyar’s a hole in yore pants. . . . But I don’t feel any blood. . . . Wal, he jest burned you an’ you shore air plum lucky. He might’ve busted a bone.” He arose to his feet, his ruddy homely face wreathed in a grin. “Reckon thet is the fust time you’ve ever felt hot lead?”

“Indeed it is,” I replied, in great relief.

“Purty close shave,” he went on. “Most times a tenderfoot has to pay a damn sight more than thet to git by the bad place.”

“Fellows, I knew I was a tenderfoot all right, but I just didn’t know how to react to that situation.”

“You didn’t do so bad,” returned the little fellow with friendliness. “We was listenin’ an’ watchin’. You shore socked thet mean hombre an’ I was tickled to death to see him git it. He reckons he owns thet dance-hall gurl, Ruby, an’ he’s daid wrong. She was nice to me an’ particular nice to Vance hyar.”

“Stranger, mebbe you will drink with us?” asked the tall fellow.

“I will—I certainly do need a bracer.”

He led the way to the bar where at one end the customers were obviously eager to give him room and presently we were lined up facing each other with glasses in hand. I thought it about time to introduce myself.

“My name’s Wayne Cameron, from Boston. I’m out here to go to work on the telegraph line.”

“Wal, Cameron, you shore didn’t need to tell us you were a Yankee,” returned the little fellow, with a laugh. “Thet ain’t so good out hyar. My pard hyar, Vance Shaw, is a dyed-in-the-wool rebel an’ I’m from Missouri. But mebbe we kin git along together. I most forgot. My name is Jack Lowden.”

I shook hands with him and then with Shaw. There was a great similarity in their handshakes, but a potent difference in their hands. Lowden’s was coarse and calloused and the grip was strong and friendly. Shaw’s hand was slim and soft, almost like a girl’s, but he had a grip as if his hand were steel covered with velvet. Then we proceeded to take our drinks.

“I take it you’re cowboys?” I queried.

“Yep, jest plain cowhands, so far as shootin’ an’ ridin’ air concerned.”

“Will you have a drink on me?” I asked.

“No thanks. One’s enough,” replied Shaw. “Let’s get out of here. Ruby’s spotted me an’ I’ve a hunch she’ll edge this way. If she gets another dance with me I’ll have to bore thet mean hombre proper.”

“Wal, hell!” exclaimed Lowden. “You oughta hev done thet last night. Why for do you want to turn the girl down ’cause of thet jealous geezer? You liked her, didn’t you?”

“I reckon,” rejoined Shaw, thoughtfully. “More’n a fellow ought to like a dance-hall girl. But she’s only sixteen years old—kinda fresh an’ innocent yet, an’ I feel sorry for her. I told you, Jack, I didn’t like the set-up. There’s a nigger in the woodpile about this dance-hall situation. If I hang around here any longer—you know me, pard. I just cain’t keep out of things.”

“Mebbe this is the deal thet you oughtn’t to stay out of,” said Lowden tersely. “Come on, let’s mosey.”

We went outside and stood in the bright light to the right of the wide doorway. I asked my new acquaintances to come down to the tavern with me and have a smoke and a talk.

“Shore’d like to,” returned Shaw. “But let’s hang here for a little. I’m lookin’ for someone.”

“Hell, pard, you’ve been lookin’ fer thet Texas hombre since we left the Rio Grande,” said Lowden with disdain. “We’ll never run into him way up hyar around the north pole.”

We lounged at ease outside the gambling hall, and while my cowboy friends scrutinized the pedestrians passing to and fro, I took advantage of the opportunity to size them up with a keenness I never remembered applying to anyone I had ever met before.

Shaw was tall and slim but on close scrutiny he appeared to me a magnificently built horseman, broad-shouldered, small-hipped, round-limbed, and when he moved, the muscles of his arms and legs showed through his clothes. He wore dark blue jeans much the worse for wear and dusty in places. He smelled of leather and horse-flesh and smoke. He wore high-topped, high-heeled boots, practically worn out.

His gun belt was dark except where the shiny tips of shells showed, and the sheath, also dark, hid all but the black butt of the big gun. That gun sheath and gun hung inconspicuously quite far below his right hip, and I noticed his gun belt crossed the front of him somewhat below the belt that held up his trousers. Over his blouse he wore a thin vest of some kind, also dark, and his broken-rimmed sombrero was dusty and full of holes. The wide brim, however, did not hide his fair clustering hair.

Despite his striking get-up, his face fascinated me most. From side view it was clear cut as a cameo, dark, cold, at once a youthful face, yet in shadow seeming to show under the smooth skin the lines and ravages of havoc. I remarked again that he had the most extraordinary eyes I had ever looked into. He must be as grand as he appeared, I decided, and I warmed to him with the most unusual emotion.

Lowden was also remarkable in his appearance, though he presented a vivid contrast in every way to his comrade. He was small of stature, sturdy and powerful, with arms too long for his body and legs markedly bowed from living much on horses. In repose his ugly face was hard and lined. His eyes were blue and possessed the same look that characterized Shaw’s, only not so intent.

As I studied these Westerners, more and more resolved to try to make friends with them, Shaw kept silent while his partner, watching just as sharply, made caustic remarks about the pedestrians. Suddenly Lowden’s tone showed more than casual interest.

“Pard, look hyar. See thet cowboy edgin’ closer? He’s gonna brace us. Gosh, he looks down on his luck. Ragged, worn out, beard uncut, an’ he’s been sleepin’ in the brush all right.”

I was quick to turn my attention to the individual so strikingly indicated. He was now coming toward us, hesitatingly at first, and then, as if finding our scrutiny favorable, with more assurance. He might have been about our age, but his haggard face permitted of no accurate judgment about it. He had fierce dark eyes in which I detected a shadow of hope. He stopped abreast of us.

“Howdy, cowboys,” he said. “ ’Scuse me for bracin’ you, but you’re the first approachable riders I’ve seen.”

“Howdy yourself,” returned Jack, friendly enough. “Shore we’re approachable.”

“I wanta ask if you’ll buy a grand hoss?”

“What’s wrong with the cowboy who’ll sell his grand hoss?” returned Shaw, curtly.

“Why do you suppose, man?” flashed the cowboy with spirit, as if nettled at the implication. “I’ve been ridin’ the grub line for days, an’ believe me, camps an’ ranches are few and far between along this old trail. I’m most starved to death.”

“Wal, thet’s reason enough,” returned Shaw, thoughtfully. “We won’t buy yore grand hoss, but we’ll see thet you eat. Is thet all yo’re lookin’ for?”

“Thank you, cowboy. . . . Good Lord, it’s so long since I looked for anythin’ else that I’ve forgotten what there might be to look for.”

While these two men, about equal in height, locked glances, Lowden took a step forward and interposed.

“Cowboy, you could hev struck wuss fellers then us, if I do say it myself. You kin talk or not as you like. My pard hyar is from Texas an’ I’m his ridin’ hand. This big gazabo with us is a Yankee from down East, but we reckon he’s all right.”

“I wouldn’t mind talkin’ after I get somethin’ to eat an’ a drink,” returned the stranger.

“Hyar, ’scuse us fer bein’ so thick. Take this money. There’s a purty good eatin’ place next door. Go in there and fill up. We’ll be hyar a while—if you want to come back.”

The cowboy took the money with a grateful look, and without a word, hurried to the door of the restaurant and went in.

“Vance, what do you know about thet?” queried Lowden, with strong interest.

“About what?” asked his comrade.

“Why, you dern fool, is the milk of human kindness soured in yore breast?”

“No, Jack, I reckon not, but it’s gettin’ kind of a bitter taste.”

“Dawg-gone you, yo’re a-lyin’,” returned Lowden. “Cameron, what did you think about thet hombre who jest braced us?”

Thus appealed to, I frankly unburdened myself of my impressions of the fellow. Lowden replied with a snort of satisfaction.

“See there, pard. Our Yankee tenderfoot is purty durn keen. Thet feller is a purty sad case. Wouldn’t you say he’s on the dodge?”

“Reckon I got thet hunch. Thet cowboy has killed somebody an’ not very long ago. But I wouldn’t take him for crooked.”

“Neither would I, pard, but you know us tender-hearted cowhands hev made mistakes before. Howsomever, let’s take a chance an’ wait fer him an’ see how he stacks up.”

No more was said at the moment and the cowboys resumed their watching of the passers-by and I fell to doing likewise. I found difficulty in being what I thought rational in my attitude toward my new comrades and the time and place. My intense interest was not consistent with New England aloofness and judgment, but it was as if I had suddenly discovered in myself instincts and feelings that I never knew I possessed. I tried to place each individual that came along and to identify him as workman, cattleman, teamster, gambler, and so on. There were not so many pedestrians now as there had been earlier in the evening.

Presently it afforded me great pleasure to espy a couple of Indians approaching. They were far from the dignified romantic specimens that my imagination had conjured up. Their short bulky forms were blanketed, their black hair fell over their shoulders, and their swarthy features were interesting but not attractive. They shuffled along on moccasined feet and their short bowlegs showed beneath the blankets. As they passed us, Lowden remarked under his breath, “Lousy redskins!”

I did not see a single woman on the street during that half hour we stood there. Probably there were but few women in the town. I felt curious to see the dance-hall girl, Ruby, again, and then suddenly my mind was stirred by memory of the wagon-train girl whose unforgettable face intrigued me more and more. At this juncture the luckless cowboy came out of the restaurant and approached us directly.

“Fellers, I’m glad you waited. I shore feel a different man.”

“Wal, when a starved man gits his belly full again, it does make a difference. I’ve been there.”

Here I suggested that we all go down to my quarters where we could have a drink and a smoke and talk.

“Where’s yore hoss?” queried Shaw of the cowboy.

“I staked him out of town a ways. Only a patch of grass, but it’ll do for him to-night. I’ll go back to him by and by.”

My attention was given more to my companions as we walked down the crowded street to my lodging than to the men we passed and to my surroundings. The big hall in the barn-like tavern was crowded so I took my acquaintances to my quarters. It was a large room, bare, with four bunks and very little furniture, and the lamp gave a rather inadequate light. I told the fellows to make themselves at home while I tried to find another lamp and something to drink and smoke. The proprietor told me there was not anybody else to occupy that room but myself and I replied that I might have my friends stay there that night. I returned with the articles, and the new lamp gave a more cheerful atmosphere if anything could have done so.

“Now, fellows,” I said cheerfully, “here’s some smokes and drinks. I hope we can get acquainted.”

“What you want fer two-bits?” inquired Lowden, dryly. “If you knowed Westerners you’d hev seen we got acquainted long ago.”

By way of introducing the subject, I told them briefly about myself and ended up by mentioning how glad I was to meet them, not to say thankful for their help.

“Wal, Wayne,” drawled the cowboy Shaw, and smiled for the first time. It was an illuminating transformation and it seemed to give him another character. “If I can just get around yore bein’ a Yankee, I reckon we’ll get along tip-top.”

“Hell, pard, there ain’t any war out hyar yet,” said Jack Lowden, “an’ mebbe there never will be.”

“Aw, it’s as shore as death. If you were from Texas instead of Missouri you’d have seen thet long ago.”

“Listen, Shaw,” I interposed. “I forgot to mention in my little story about myself that my house is one divided against itself. My mother is a Yankee and my father is a Southerner. His business keeps him in the North, but his heart is in his homeland.”

“Holy Moses!” ejaculated Lowden. “Thet makes you half a rebel anyhow.”

“Wal, fellers, thet puts a different complexion on Cameron,” said Shaw. “An’ I reckon we’ll get along just about fine. Now, Jack, you tell him an’ our new comrade here who we are an’ what we’re doin’ here.”

“Thet’s easy,” returned Jack, puffing a huge cloud of smoke. “And I kin do it short an’ sweet. We’re jest a couple of no-good cowboys from the Rio Grande. No homes an’ no kin folks to speak of, no money an’ no sweethearts, jest the clothes we got on our back an’ the guns, an’ I mustn’t forget, two of the finest hosses any cowboy ever forked. It got kinda hot fer us down there an’ as there were no jobs to be had with wages, we reckoned we’d do well to ride a grub line north. It was months ago when we started an’ I fergit about what happened on the way. Down in the Panhandle we heared a rumor about this telegraph line goin’ to be built across the plains an’ what a hell of a job it was goin’ to be so we made north an’ hyar we air.”

“Fellers, Jack was always slick at leavin’ things out,” interposed Shaw. “He should have said we got chased out of Texas. But all we did was shoot a couple of bad hombres who had a lot of tough relatives.”

“How long have you been here, Vance, and what do you know about this Western Union work?” I inquired.