The Westerners Read online

  III

  THE MAN WHO STOOD "99"

  The three scouts would never have been able to explain satisfactorilytheir reasons for being so easily persuaded, or their obstinacy inadhering to the determination so suddenly made. Prue Welch would havethanked a divine providence for it. The doctor, her husband, took itas quite in the natural course of events.

  He was a queer man, the doctor, a pathetic little figure in the world'sprogress--an outgrowth of it, in a certain way of thinking.

  Born of good old New England stock, he spent his studious, hard-workingboyhood on a farm. At sixteen he went to the high school, where he wasadored by his teachers because he stood ninety-nine in algebra.Inconsequently, but inevitably, this rendered him shy in the presenceof girls, and unwarrantably conscious of his hands and feet. So, whenhe went to college, he spent much time in the library, more in thelaboratory, and none at all in the elemental little chaos of a worldthat can do so much for the wearers of queer clothes and queerer habitsof thought. He graduated, a spectacled grind, bowed of shoulder,straight of hair, earnest of thought.

  Much reading of abstract speculation had developed in him a reverencefor the impractical that amounted almost to obsession. Given a bit ofuseless information and a chunk of solid wisdom, he would at oncebestow his preference on the former, provided, always, it weretheoretical enough. He knew the dips of strata from their premonitarysurface wiggles to their final plunges into unknown and heated depths.He could deliver to you a cross-section of your pasture lot, streakedlike the wind-clouds of early winter; and he could explain it in themost technical language. Nothing rock-ribbed and ancient escaped himin his frequent walks. He saw everything--except, perchance, thebeauty that clothes the rock-ribbed and ancient as a delicate aura,invisible to the eye of science--and he labelled what he saw, andticketed it away in the pigeon-holes of his many-chambered mind, wherehe could put his finger on it at any given moment in the easiestfashion in the world.

  It is very pleasant to know where the Paleozoic has faulted, and how;or why the stratifications of the ice age do not show glacial scoringsin certain New England localities. To verify in regard to laminationgreen volumes of obese proportions, or to recognize the projection intothe geological physical world of the thought of a master, this is fine,is noble; this makes to glow the kindly light in spectacled blue eyes.

  Adoniram Welch left college with many honors. He returned to hislittle New England village, and for a space was looked upon as a localcelebrity. This is a bad thing for most youths, but Adoniram itaffected not at all. It availed only to draw upon him, in sweetcontemplation, another pair of blue eyes, womanly, serious blue eyes,under a tangle of curly golden hair.

  And so, although Prue Welch was a homely name, and Prue Winterborne abeautiful one, when Adoniram accepted the chair of geology offered himby his alma mater, the owner of the blue eyes went with him, and thenew professor's thick spectacles somehow glowed with a kindly warmth,which even fine specimens of the finest fossils had never been able tokindle. He settled down into a little white house, in a littleblossomy "yard," under a very big, motherly elm, and gave his days tothe earnest mental dissection of the cuticle of the globe. His wifeattacked the problem of life on six hundred dollars a year.

  Now, from this state of affairs sprang two results. The professorevolved a theory, and Mrs. Professor, although she did not in the leastunderstand what it was all about, came to believe in it, to championit, to consider it quite the most important affair of the age. Theprofessor thought so, too; and so they were happy and united.

  The theory was a tremendous affair, having to do with nothing less thanthe formation of our continent. It was revolutionary in the extreme,but shed such illumination in hitherto dark corners of this and alliedsubjects that its probability, _prima facie_, was practically assured.To Prue Welch it seemed to be quite so; but the inexorable eye ofscience discerned breaks in the chain of continuity, gaps in theprocession of proofs, which, while not of vast importance in a speciousargument designed to furnish with peptonized intellectual pabulum themore frivolous-minded layman, nevertheless sufficed to destroy utterlyits worth as a serious hypothesis. These breaks, the professorexplained, could never be filled except by actual field-work. Theproper field, he assured her, was the country of the Black Hills ofSouth Dakota, then as distant as the antipodes. He proved thisscientifically. Prue agreed, but did not understand. A number ofyears later she did understand, from hearing Billy Knapp joking withAlfred.

  "These yar hills," said Billy, "was made last. The Lo'd had a littleof everything left when he'd finished the rest, so he chucked it downon the prairie, an' called it the Black Hills."

  However, the mere fact of her comprehension mattered not one iota. IfAdoniram said a thing was so, to Prue its truth at once became age-old.

  So it happened that the great theory hung fire wofully, and the countryof their dreams came to lie beyond the frontier wilderness, whose tidewas but just beginning to ebb back from the pine woods of Wisconsin andthe oak openings of Illinois. This was finality. What lay beyond theydid not trouble to inquire. The professor sighed the sigh of patientabnegation. The professor's wife believed, with beautiful trust, thata divine providence would provide, and that with the earth-wide famethat must accrue to the author of _New World Erosions_ would come addedopportunity for added reputation.

  For a number of years the kind-hearted little professor lookedsteadfastly out of the window during examinations in geology, andturned a resolute deaf ear to the rustling of leaves as the despairingstudent manipulated a cleverly concealed volume. For a number of yearshe came home at four o'clock in the afternoon, and feverishly correctedblue books until six, in order to ransom from professional duties thewhole of the precious evening. For a number of years he consultedauthorities in German and other difficult languages, and waxed evermore enthusiastic over the new theory of erosions. During the interimthe baby learned to walk, and Prue's belief in its father strengthened,if such a thing were possible. In time the professor and his wife grewto be quite old. He looked every bit of his thirty, and she was anaged dowager of twenty-five. Little Miss Prue was just two and a half.

  One day, early in the spring, the professor was called to the door ofhis class-room to receive a telegram. He read it quietly, thendismissed his class, and went home.

  "Prue," said he to his wife, "my father has just died. I must go upthere at once, for he was all I had left in the world, and it is notseemly that I should be from his side."

  You can see from his manner of speech that the professor had by nowread a great many bookish books.

  "We will go together," replied Prue.

  So they put away mortality in the old Puritan fashion, standingwistful, but tearless, hand in hand, on the hither side of grief; forthough in perspective the figure of the old New Englander loomed with acertain gloomy and ascetic grandeur, in the daily contact he had alwaysheld himself sternly and straitly in fear of God. For him the twinlamps of Science and Love had burned but darkly.

  Adoniram Welch found himself sole heir of a few thousands and the oldhome.

  On the way back to the college town, they planned the Western trip.The professor was to resign his chair at once. He and Mrs. Prue andlittle Miss Prue would travel by rail to Kansas or Iowa, there to joinone of the wagon-trains which now, in the height of the first greatgold excitement, continually braved savage warfare and brute thirst togain the dark shadows of the hills.

  During the next three weeks, Prue was a busy woman. The professorresigned, becoming thereby only "the doctor"; had an explanatoryinterview with the president of the college, and gave himself over to aseries of delightful potterings. He pottered about among hisbelongings, and personally superintended just how everything was notstowed away. He pottered about among the faculty, to the members ofwhich he talked mysteriously with ill-concealed exultation, for thetheory was also a secret. He lovingly packed his books and papers anda small portion of his clothes, all of which Pr
ue had to hunt out andrepack. Altogether, he had a delightful, absent-minded time, seeing inthe actual world no further than the end of his nose, but in thevisionary world of his most technical hopes far beyond the fartheststar.

  But Prue had a New England village to answer; she had the family'sbelongings to take care of--no great task in itself; she had littleMiss Prue to oversee. Grave men who were professors of astronomy, orGreek antiquities, or Hebrew, and who, therefore, knew all about it,told her, in language of whose correctness Addison would have beenproud, that the aborigines of the American plains were bloodthirsty inthe extreme. Fluttering women detailed anecdotes of sudden death atthe hands of Indians. One and all bade her good-by with the firmconviction, openly expressed, that she would never return; upon whichall whom weeping became wept, while others displayed their besthandkerchiefs as a sort of defiant substitute for more open emotion.Prue saw the little town fade into distance with mingled feelings, ofwhich terror was the predominant, until her husband explained to her,by the aid of an airy little octavo which he had stuffed into aninadequate bag, that Professor Nincomb's theory of glacial action wasnot only false, but would be conclusively proved to be so by the newtheory of erosion. At this she brightened. Prue owned to a vagueimpression that glacial action had something to do with the North Pole,so the argument _per se_ had little weight with her. But Prue was aNew Englander, and devout in the New England fashion, and she settledback on Divine Providence with great thankfulness. She argued that noscheme of things could dispense ruthlessly with so wonderful an affairas the theory of erosions. Therefore the scheme of things would takecare of the only possessor of the theory. Indians lost their terrors,she and little Miss Prue fell asleep together, leaving the doctor stillporing excitedly over the octavo of Professor Nincomb.

  Their first serious difficulties were encountered at Three Rivers. Ofcourse, in the circumstances, the mild little doctor quite failed inhis attempts to secure transportation. How should he, a scientist,know or care anything about gold excitements? The hustle confused him,the crowd stunned him, the fierce self-reliance and lack ofconsideration of these rough men alarmed him.

  He came back to the board hotel very much discouraged. "There is not aconveyance of any sort to be found," he informed Mrs. Prue, "and thereis great difficulty in estimating the precise duration of the presentstate of affairs. It may continue into next summer; or so, at least, Iwas informed by a very estimable person."

  That was unbearable. Think of little Miss Prue being required, in thethird year of her diminutive life, to face the heat of the plains inmidsummer! Think of the cost of living a twelvemonth in such a placeas Three Rivers! Prue put on her hat and went out into the turbulentcamp. Until that moment she had deemed it wisest to remain in her room.

  She was greeted only with respect. Men paused and looked after her.You see, Prue had such grave, calm eyes, that looked straight at youwith so much confidence; and such a sensitive, serious mouth, thatargued such a capacity for making up quiet opinions of people--andacting on them--that you were always very much inclined to take offyour hat, even if you were Tony Quinn and middling drunk. It was notten minutes before she had corroborated the doctor's bad news; but shehad also heard incidentally of Billy Knapp, Alfred, and Buckley. Thehotel-keeper pointed out the latter--that quiet man with the brownbeard. Prue went straight to him and stated her case.

  In the statement she laid great stress on the importance of the dip ofstrata. If the doctor did not get to work before long, he would beunable to finish his explorations before his means had becomeexhausted. Prue waxed quite technical. She used a number of longwords and a few long phrases, hoping thus to awe the calm andcontemplative individual in front of her.

  Buckley did not comprehend the reasons. He did comprehend theunutterable eloquence of the eyes, for though her logic went for naughtwith the scout, it succeeded nevertheless in impressing Prue herself,in bringing more vividly before her the importance of it all. Sheclasped her hands, and tears choked her. When she had finished, Jimsaid gravely that she should go.