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Across The Jumping Sandhills
by
“Eh bien. One afternoon we were all standing outside the Post, when we saw someone ride over the Long Divide. It was good for the eyes. I cannot tell quite how, but horse and rider were so sharp and clear-cut against the sky, that they looked very large and peculiar–there was something in the air to magnify. They stopped for a minute on the top of the Divide, and it seemed like a messenger out of the strange country at the farthest north–the place of legends. But, of course, it was only a traveller like ourselves, for in a half-hour she was with us.
“Yes, it was a girl dressed as a man. She did not try to hide it; she dressed so for ease. She would make a man’s heart leap in his mouth–if he was like Macavoy, or the pious Mowley there.”
Pierre’s last three words had a touch of irony, for he knew that the Trapper had a precious tongue for Scripture when a missionary passed that way, and a bad name with women to give it point. Mowley smiled sourly; but Macavoy laughed outright, and smacked his lips on his pipe-stem luxuriously.
“Aw now, Pierre–all me little failin’s–aw!” he protested.
Pierre swung round on the bench, leaning upon the other elbow, and, cherishing his cigarette, presently continued:
“She had come far and was tired to death, so stiff that she could hardly get from her horse; and the horse too was ready to drop. Handsome enough she looked, for all that, in man’s clothes and a peaked cap, with a pistol in her belt. She wasn’t big built–just a feathery kind of sapling–but she was set fair on her legs like a man, and a hand that was as good as I have seen, so strong, and like silk and iron with a horse. Well, what was the trouble?–for I saw there was trouble. Her eyes had a hunted look, and her nose breathed like a deer’s in the chase. All at once, when she saw Hilton’s wife, a cry came from her and she reached out her hands. What would women of that sort do? They were both of a kind. They got into each other’s arms. After that there was nothing for us men but to wait. All women are the same, and Hilton’s wife was like the rest. She must get the secret first; then the men should know. We had to wait an hour. Then Hilton’s wife beckoned to us. We went inside. The girl was asleep. There was something in the touch of Hilton’s wife like sleep itself–like music. It was her voice–that touch. She could not speak with her tongue, but her hands and face were words and music. Bien, there was the girl asleep, all clear of dust and stain; and that fine hand it lay loose on her breast, so quiet, so quiet. Enfin, the real story–for how she slept there does not matter–but it was good to see when we knew the story.”
The Trapper was laughing silently to himself to hear Pierre in this romantic mood. A woman’s hand–it was the game for a boy, not an adventurer; for the Trapper’s only creed was that women, like deer, were spoils for the hunter. Pierre’s keen eye noted this, but he was above petty anger. He merely said: “If a man have an eye to see behind the face, he understands the foolish laugh of a man, or the hand of a good woman, and that is much. Hilton’s wife told us all. She had rode two hundred miles from the south-west, and was making for Fort Micah, sixty miles farther north. For what? She had loved a man against the will of her people. There had been a feud, and Garrison–that was the lover’s name–was the last on his own side. There was trouble at a Company’s post, and Garrison shot a half-breed. Men say he was right to shoot him, for a woman’s name must be safe up here. Besides, the half-breed drew first. Well, Garrison was tried, and must go to jail for a year. At the end of that time he would be free. The girl Janie knew the day. Word had come to her. She made everything ready. She knew her brothers were watching–her three brothers and two other men who had tried to get her love. She knew also that they five would carry on the feud against the one man. So one night she took the best horse on the ranch and started away towards Fort Micah. Alors, you know how she got to Guidon Hill after two days’ hard riding–enough to kill a man, and over fifty yet to do. She was sure her brothers were on her track. But if she could get to Fort Micah, and be married to Garrison before they came; she wanted no more.