The three Johns

The three Johns

THE equinoctial line itself is not more
imaginary than the line which divided
the estates of the three Johns. The herds
of the three Johns roamed at will, and
nibbled the short grass far and near without
let or hindrance; and the three Johns them-
selves were utterly indifferent as to boun-
dary lines. Each of them had filed his
application at the office of the government
land-agent; each was engaged in the tedious
task of "proving up;" and each owned
one-third of the L-shaped cabin which stood
at the point where the three ranches touched.
The hundred and sixty acres which would
have completed this quadrangle had not
yet been "taken up."

The three Johns were not anxious to have
a neighbor. Indeed, they had made up
their minds that if one appeared on that
adjoining "hun'erd an' sixty," it would go
hard with him. For they did not deal in
justice very much -- the three Johns. They
considered it effete. It belonged in the
East along with other outgrown supersti-
tions. And they had given it out widely
that it would be healthier for land applicants
to give them elbow-room. It took a good
many miles of sunburnt prairie to afford
elbow-room for the three Johns.

They met by accident in Hamilton at the
land-office. John Henderson, fresh from
Cincinnati, manifestly unused to the ways
of the country, looked at John Gillispie with
a lurking smile. Gillispie wore a sombrero,
fresh, white, and expansive. His boots had
high heels, and were of elegant leather and
finely arched at the instep. His corduroys
disappeared in them half-way up the thigh.
About his waist a sash of blue held a laced
shirt of the same color in place. Hender-
son puffed at his cigarette, and continued
to look a trifle quizzical.

Suddenly Gillispie walked up to him and
said, in a voice of complete suavity, "Damn
yeh, smoke a pipe!"

"Eh?" said Henderson, stupidly.

"Smoke a pipe," said the other. "That
thing you have is bad for your complexion."

"I can take care of my complexion," said
Henderson, firmly.

The two looked each other straight in the
eye.

"You don't go on smoking that thing till
you have apologized for that grin you had
on your phiz a moment ago."

"I laugh when I please, and I smoke
what I please," said Henderson, hotly, his
face flaming as he realized that he was in
for his first "row."

That was how it began. How it would
have ended is not known -- probably there
would have been only one John -- if it had
not been for the almost miraculous appear-
ance at this moment of the third John. For
just then the two belligerents found them-
selves prostrate, their pistols only half-cocked,
and between them stood a man all gnarled
and squat, like one of those wind-torn oaks
which grow on the arid heights. He was
no older than the others, but the lines in
his face were deep, and his large mouth
twitched as he said: --

"Hold on here, yeh fools! There's too
much blood in you to spill. You'll spile
th' floor, and waste good stuff. We need
blood out here!"

Gillispie bounced to his feet. Henderson
arose suspiciously, keeping his eyes on his
assailants.

"Oh, get up!" cried the intercessor.
"We don't shoot men hereabouts till they
git on their feet in fightin' trim."

"What do you know about what we do
here?" interrupted Gillispie. "This is the
first time I ever saw you around."

"That's so," the other admitted. "I'm
just down from Montana. Came to take up
a quarter section. Where I come from we
give men a show, an' I thought perhaps yeh
did th' same here."

"Why, yes," admitted Gillispie, "we do.
But I don't want folks to laugh too much
-- not when I'm around -- unless they tell
me what the joke is. I was just mentioning
it to the gentleman," he added, dryly.

"So I saw," said the other; "you're kind
a emphatic in yer remarks. Yeh ought to
give the gentleman a chance to git used to
the ways of th' country. He'll be as tough
as th' rest of us if you'll give him a chance.
I kin see it in him."

"Thank you," said Henderson. "I'm
glad you do me justice. I wish you wouldn't
let daylight through me till I've had a chance
to get my quarter section. I'm going to
be one of you, either as a live man or a
corpse. But I prefer a hundred and sixty
acres of land to six feet of it."

"There, now!" triumphantly cried the
squat man. "Didn't I tell yeh? Give him
a show! 'Tain't no fault of his that he's a
tenderfoot. He'll get over that."

Gillispie shook hands with first one and
then the other of the men. "It's a square
deal from this on," he said. "Come and
have a drink."

That's how they met -- John Henderson,
John Gillispie, and John Waite. And a week
later they were putting up a shanty together
for common use, which overlapped each of
their reservations, and satisfied the law with
its sociable subterfuge.

The life wasn't bad, Henderson decided;
and he adopted all the ways of the country
in an astonishingly short space of time.
There was a freedom about it all which was
certainly complete. The three alternated
in the night watch. Once a week one of
them went to town for provisions. They
were not good at the making of bread, so
they contented themselves with hot cakes.
Then there was salt pork for a staple, and
prunes. They slept in straw-lined bunks,
with warm blankets for a covering. They
made a point of bringing reading-matter
back from town every week, and there were
always cards to fall back on, and Waite sang
songs for them with natural dramatic talent.

Nevertheless, in spite of their content-
ment, none of them was sorry when the
opportunity offered for going to town.
There was always a bit of stirring gossip to
be picked up, and now and then there was
a "show" at the "opera-house," in which,
it is almost unnecessary to say, no opera
had ever been sung. Then there was the
hotel, at which one not only got good fare,
but a chat with the three daughters of Jim
O'Neal, the proprietor -- girls with the acci-
dent of two Irish parents, who were, not-
withstanding, as typically American as they
well could be. A half-hour's talk with these
cheerful young women was all the more to
be desired for the reason that within riding
distance of the three Johns' ranch there were
only two other women. One was Minerva
Fitch, who had gone out from Michigan
accompanied by an oil-stove and a knowl-
edge of the English grammar, with the
intention of teaching school, but who had
been unable to carry these good intentions
into execution for the reason that there were
no children to teach, -- at least, none but
Bow-legged Joe. He was a sad little fellow,
who looked like a prairie-dog, and who had
very much the same sort of an outlook on life.
The other woman was the brisk and efficient
wife of Mr. Bill Deems, of "Missourah."
Mr. Deems had never in his life done any-
thing, not even so much as bring in a basket
of buffalo chips to supply the scanty fire.
That is to say, he had done nothing strictly
utilitarian. Yet he filled his place. He was
the most accomplished story-teller in the
whole valley, and this accomplishment of his
was held in as high esteem as the improvisa-
tions of a Welsh minstrel were among his
reverencing people. His wife alone depre-
cated his skill, and interrupted his spirited
narratives with sarcastic allusions concerning
the empty cupboard, and the "state of her
back," to which, as she confided to any who
would listen, "there was not a rag fit to wear."

These two ladies had not, as may be
surmised, any particular attraction for John
Henderson. Truth to tell, Henderson had
not come West with the intention of lik-
ing women, but rather with a determina-
tion to see and think as little of them as
possible. Yet even the most confirmed
misogynist must admit that it is a good
thing to see a woman now and then, and for
this reason Henderson found it amusing to
converse with the amiable Misses O'Neal.
At twenty-five one cannot be unyielding in
one's avoidance of the sex.

Henderson, with his pony at a fine lope,
was on his way to town one day, in that
comfortable frame of mind adduced by an
absence of any ideas whatever, when he
suddenly became conscious of a shiver that
seemed to run from his legs to the pony,
and back again. The animal gave a startled
leap, and lifted his ears. There was a stir-
ring in the coarse grasses; the sky, which
a moment before had been like sapphire,
dulled with an indescribable grayness.

Then came a little singing afar off, as if
from a distant convocation of cicadæ, and
before Henderson could guess what it meant,
a cloud of dust was upon him, blinding and
bewildering, pricking with sharp particles
at eyes and nostrils. The pony was an ugly
fellow, and when Henderson felt him put his
forefeet together, he knew what that meant,
and braced himself for the struggle. But it
was useless; he had not yet acquired the
knack of staying on the back of a bucking
bronco, and the next moment he was on
the ground, and around him whirled that
saffron chaos of dust. The temperature
lowered every moment. Henderson in-
stinctively felt that this was but the begin-
ning of the storm. He picked himself up
without useless regrets for his pony, and
made his way on.

The saffron hue turned to blackness, and
then out of the murk shot a living green
ball of fire, and ploughed into the earth.
Then sheets of water, that seemed to come
simultaneously from earth and sky, swept
the prairie, and in the midst of it struggled
Henderson, weak as a little child, half bereft
of sense by the strange numbness of head
and dullness of eye. Another of those green
balls fell and burst, as it actually appeared
to him, before his horrified eyes, and the
bellow and blare of the explosion made him
cry out in a madness of fright and physical
pain. In the illumination he had seen a
cabin only a few feet in front of him, and
toward it he made frantically, with an ani-
mal's instinctive desire for shelter.

The door did not yield at once to his
pressure, and in the panic of his fear he
threw his weight against it. There was a
cry from within, a fall, and Henderson flung
himself in the cabin and closed the door.

In the dusk of the storm he saw a woman
half prostrate. It was she whom he had
pushed from the door. He caught the hook
in its staple, and turned to raise her. She
was not trembling as much as he, but, like
himself, she was dizzy with the shock of
the lightning. In the midst of all the
clamor Henderson heard a shrill crying, and
looking toward the side of the room, he
dimly perceived three tiny forms crouched
in one of the bunks. The woman took the
smallest of the children in her arms, and
kissed and soothed it; and Henderson, after
he had thrown a blanket at the bottom of
the door to keep out the drifting rain, sat
with his back to it, bracing it against the
wind, lest the frail staple should give way.
He managed some way to reach out and lay
hold of the other little ones, and got them
in his arms, -- a boy, so tiny he seemed
hardly human, and a girl somewhat sturdier.
They cuddled in his arms, and clutched his
clothes with their frantic little hands, and
the three sat so while the earth and the
heavens seemed to be meeting in angry
combat.

And back and forth, back and forth, in
the dimness swayed the body of the woman,
hushing her babe.

Almost as suddenly as the darkness had
fallen, it lifted. The lightning ceased to
threaten, and almost frolicked, -- little way-
ward flashes of white and yellow dancing
in mid-air. The wind wailed less frequently,
like a child who sobs in its sleep. And at
last Henderson could make his voice heard.

"Is there anything to build a fire with?"
he shouted. "The children are shiver-
ing so."

The woman pointed to a basket of buffalo
chips in the corner, and he wrapped his
little companions up in a blanket while he
made a fire in the cooking-stove. The baby
was sleeping by this time, and the woman
began tidying the cabin, and when the
fire was burning brightly, she put some
coffee on.

"I wish I had some clothes to offer you,"
she said, when the wind had subsided suffi-
ciently to make talking possible. "I'm
afraid you'll have to let them get dry on you."

"Oh, that's of no consequence at all!
We're lucky to get off with our lives. I
never saw anything so terrible. Fancy!
half an hour ago it was summer; now it is
winter!"

"It seems rather sudden when you're not
used to it," the woman admitted. "I've
lived in the West six years now; you can't
frighten me any more. We never die out
here before our time comes."

"You seem to know that I haven't been
here long," said Henderson, with some
chagrin.

"Yes," admitted the woman; "you have
the ear-marks of a man from the East."

She was a tall woman, with large blue
eyes, and a remarkable quantity of yellow
hair braided on top of her head. Her gown
was of calico, of such a pattern as a widow
might wear.

"I haven't been out of town a week yet,"
she said. "We're not half settled. Not
having any one to help makes it harder;
and the baby is rather fretful."

"But you're not alone with all these little
codgers?" cried Henderson, in dismay.

The woman turned toward him with a sort
of defiance. "Yes, I am," she said; "and
I'm as strong as a horse, and I mean to get
through all right. Here were the three
children in my arms, you may say, and no
way to get in a cent. I wasn't going to
stand it just to please other folk. I said,
let them talk if they want to, but I'm going
to hold down a claim, and be accumulating
something while the children are getting up
a bit. Oh, I'm not afraid!"

In spite of this bold assertion of bravery,
there was a sort of break in her voice. She
was putting dishes on the table as she talked,
and turned some ham in the skillet, and got
the children up before the fire, and dropped
some eggs in water, -- all with a rapidity that
bewildered Henderson.

"How long have you been alone?" he
asked, softly.

"Three months before baby was born,
and he's five months old now. I -- I -- you
think I can get on here, don't you? There
was nothing else to do."

She was folding another blanket over the
sleeping baby now, and the action brought
to her guest the recollection of a thousand
tender moments of his dimly remembered
youth.

"You'll get on if we have anything to do
with it," he cried, suppressing an oath with
difficulty, just from pure emotion.

And he told her about the three Johns'
ranch, and found it was only three miles
distant, and that both were on the same
road; only her cabin, having been put up
during the past week, had of course been
unknown to him. So it ended in a sort of
compact that they were to help each other
in such ways as they could. Meanwhile the
fire got genial, and the coffee filled the cabin
with its comfortable scent, and all of them
ate together quite merrily, Henderson cut-
ting up the ham for the youngsters; and he
told how he chanced to come out; and she
entertained him with stories of what she
thought at first when she was brought a
bride to Hamilton, the adjacent village, and
convulsed him with stories of the people,
whom she saw with humorous eyes.

Henderson marvelled how she could in
those few minutes have rescued the cabin
from the desolation in which the storm had
plunged it. Out of the window he could
see the stricken grasses dripping cold moist-
ure, and the sky still angrily plunging for-
ward like a disturbed sea. Not a tree or a
house broke the view. The desolation of it
swept over him as it never had before. But
within the little ones were chattering to
themselves in odd baby dialect, and the
mother was laughing with them.

"Women aren't always useless," she said,
at parting; "and you tell your chums that
when they get hungry for a slice of home-
made bread they can get it here. And the
next time they go by, I want them to stop
in and look at the children. It'll do them
good. They may think they won't enjoy
themselves, but they will."

"Oh, I'll answer for that!" cried he,
shaking hands with her. "I'll tell them we
have just the right sort of a neighbor."

"Thank you," said she, heartily. "And
you may tell them that her name is Cathe-
rine Ford."

Once at home, he told his story.

"H'm!" said Gillispie, "I guess I'll have
to go to town myself to-morrow."

Henderson looked at him blackly. "She's
a woman alone, Gillispie," said he, severely,
"trying to make her way with handicaps -- "

"Shet up, can't ye, ye darned fool?"
roared Gillispie. "What do yeh take me
fur?"

Waite was putting on his rubber coat
preparatory to going out for his night with
the cattle. "Guess you're makin' a mistake,
my boy," he said, gently. "There ain't no
danger of any woman bein' treated rude in
these parts."

"I know it, by Jove!" cried Henderson,
in quick contriteness.

"All right," grunted Gillispie, in tacit
acceptance of this apology. "I guess you
thought you was in civilized parts."

Two days after this Waite came in late
to his supper. "Well, I seen her," he
announced.

"Oh! did you?" cried Henderson, know-
ing perfectly well whom he meant. "What
was she doing?"

"Killin' snakes, b'gosh! She says th'
baby's crazy fur um, an' so she takes aroun'
a hoe on her shoulder wherever she goes,
an' when she sees a snake, she has it out
with 'im then an' there. I says to 'er, 'Yer
don't expec' t' git all th' snakes outen this
here country, d' yeh?' 'Well,' she says,
'I'm as good a man as St. Patrick any day.'
She is a jolly one, Henderson. She tuk
me in an' showed me th' kids, and give me
a loaf of gingerbread to bring home. Here
it is; see?"

"Hu!" said Gillispie. "I'm not in it."
But for all of his scorn he was not above
eating the gingerbread.

It was gardening time, and the three
Johns were putting in every spare moment
in the little paling made of willow twigs
behind the house. It was little enough
time they had, though, for the cattle were
new to each other and to the country, and
they were hard to manage. It was generally
conceded that Waite had a genius for herd-
ing, and he could take the "mad" out of a
fractious animal in a way that the others
looked on as little less than superhuman.
Thus it was that one day, when the clay had
been well turned, and the seeds arranged on
the kitchen table, and all things prepared
for an afternoon of busy planting, that Waite
and Henderson, who were needed out with
the cattle, felt no little irritation at the inex-
plicable absence of Gillispie, who was to
look after the garden. It was quite night-
fall when he at last returned. Supper was
ready, although it had been Gillispie's turn
to prepare it.

Henderson was sore from his saddle, and
cross at having to do more than his share
of the work. "Damn yeh!" he cried, as
Gillispie appeared. "Where yeh been?"

"Making garden," responded Gillispie,
slowly.

"Making garden!" Henderson indulged
in some more harmless oaths.

Just then Gillispie drew from under his
coat a large and friendly looking apple-pie.
"Yes," he said, with emphasis; "I've bin
a-makin' garden fur Mis' Ford."

And so it came about that the three Johns
knew her and served her, and that she never
had a need that they were not ready to
supply if they could. Not one of them
would have thought of going to town with-
out stopping to inquire what was needed
at the village. As for Catherine Ford, she
was fighting her way with native pluck and
maternal unselfishness. If she had feared
solitude she did not suffer from it. The
activity of her life stifled her fresh sorrow.
She was pleasantly excited by the rumors
that a railroad was soon to be built near the
place, which would raise the value of the
claim she was "holding down" many thou-
sand dollars.

It is marvellous how sorrow shrinks when
one is very healthy and very much occupied.
Although poverty was her close companion,
Catherine had no thought of it in this prim-
itive manner of living. She had come out
there, with the independence and determi-
nation of a Western woman, for the purpose
of living at the least possible expense, and
making the most she could while the baby
was "getting out of her arms." That process
has its pleasures, which every mother feels
in spite of burdens, and the mind is happily
dulled by nature's merciful provision. With
a little child tugging at the breast, care and
fret vanish, not because of the happiness
so much as because of a certain mammal
complacency, which is not at all intellectual,
but serves its purpose better than the pro-
foundest method of reasoning.

So without any very unbearable misery at
her recent widowhood, this healthy young
woman worked in field and house, cared for
her little ones, milked the two cows out in
the corral, sewed, sang, rode, baked, and
was happy for very wholesomeness. Some-
times she reproached herself that she was
not more miserable, remembering that long
grave back in the unkempt little prairie
cemetery, and she sat down to coax her
sorrow into proper prominence. But the
baby cooing at her from its bunk, the low
of the cattle from the corral begging her to
relieve their heavy bags, the familiar call
of one of her neighbors from without, even
the burning sky of the summer dawns, broke
the spell of this conjured sorrow, and in
spite of herself she was again a very hearty
and happy young woman. Besides, if one
has a liking for comedy, it is impossible to
be dull on a Nebraska prairie. The people
are a merrier divertissement than the theatre
with its hackneyed stories. Catherine Ford
laughed a good deal, and she took the three
Johns into her confidence, and they laughed
with her. There was Minerva Fitch, who
insisted on coming over to tell Catherine
how to raise her children, and who was
almost offended that the children wouldn't
die of sunstroke when she predicted. And
there was Bob Ackerman, who had inflam-
matory rheumatism and a Past, and who
confided the latter to Mrs. Ford while she
doctored the former with homoeopathic
medicines. And there were all the strange
visionaries who came out prospecting, and
quite naturally drifted to Mrs. Ford's cabin
for a meal, and paid her in compliments of
a peculiarly Western type. And there were
the three Johns themselves. Catherine con-
sidered it no treason to laugh at them a
little.

Yet at Waite she did not laugh much.
There had come to be something pathetic in
the constant service he rendered her. The
beginning of his more particular devotion
had started in a particular way. Malaria
was very bad in the country. It had carried
off some of the most vigorous on the prairie,
and twice that summer Catherine herself had
laid out the cold forms of her neighbors on
ironing-boards, and, with the assistance of
Bill Deems of Missourah, had read the
burial service over them. She had averted
several other fatal runs of fever by the con-
tents of her little medicine-case. These
remedies she dealt out with an intelligence
that astonished her patients, until it was
learned that she was studying medicine at
the time that she met her late husband, and
was persuaded to assume the responsibilities
of matrimony instead of those of the medi-
cal profession.

One day in midsummer, when the sun
was focussing itself on the raw pine boards
of her shanty, and Catherine had the shades
drawn for coolness and the water-pitcher
swathed in wet rags, East Indian fashion,
she heard the familiar halloo of Waite down
the road. This greeting, which was usually
sent to her from the point where the dip-
ping road lifted itself into the first view of
the house, did not contain its usual note of
cheerfulness. Catherine, wiping her hands
on her checked apron, ran out to wave a
welcome; and Waite, his squat body looking
more distorted than ever, his huge shoulders
lurching as he walked, came fairly plung-
ing down the hill.

"It's all up with Henderson!" he cried,
as Catherine approached. "He's got the
malery, an' he says he's dyin'."

"That's no sign he's dying, because he
says so," retorted Catherine.

"He wants to see yeh," panted Waite,
mopping his big ugly head. "I think he's
got somethin' particular to say."

"How long has he been down?"

"Three days; an' yeh wouldn't know
'im."

The children were playing on the floor at
that side of the house where it was least
hot. Catherine poured out three bowls of
milk, and cut some bread, meanwhile telling
Kitty how to feed the baby.

"She's a sensible thing, is the little
daughter," said Catherine, as she tied on
her sunbonnet and packed a little basket
with things from the cupboard. She kissed
the babies tenderly, flung her hoe -- her
only weapon of defence -- over her shoulder,
and the two started off.

They did not speak, for their throats were
soon too parched. The prairie was burned
brown with the sun; the grasses curled as
if they had been on a gridiron. A strong
wind was blowing; but it brought no com-
fort, for it was heavy with a scorching heat.
The skin smarted and blistered under it, and
the eyes felt as if they were filled with sand.
The sun seemed to swing but a little way
above the earth, and though the sky was
intensest blue, around about this burning
ball there was a halo of copper, as if the
very ether were being consumed in yellow
fire.

Waite put some big burdock-leaves on
Catherine's head under her bonnet, and now
and then he took a bottle of water from his
pocket and made her swallow a mouthful.
She staggered often as she walked, and the
road was black before her. Still, it was not
very long before the oddly shaped shack of
the three Johns came in sight; and as he
caught a glimpse of it, Waite quickened his
footsteps.

"What if he should be gone?" he said,
under his breath.

"Oh, come off!" said Catherine, angrily.
"He's not gone. You make me tired!"

But she was trembling when she stopped
just before the door to compose herself for
a moment. Indeed, she trembled so very
much that Waite put out his sprawling hand
to steady her. She gently felt the pressure
tightening, and Waite whispered in her ear:

"I guess I'd stand by him as well as any-
body, excep' you, Mis' Ford. He's been
my bes' friend. But I guess you like him
better, eh?"

Catherine raised her finger. She could
hear Henderson's voice within; it was
pitiably querulous. He was half sitting up
in his bunk, and Gillispie had just handed
him a plate on which two cakes were swim-
ming in black molasses and pork gravy.
Henderson looked at it a moment; then
over his face came a look of utter despair.
He dropped his head in his arms and broke
into uncontrolled crying.

"Oh, my God, Gillispie," he sobbed, "I
shall die out here in this wretched hole! I
want my mother. Great God, Gillispie, am
I going to die without ever seeing my
mother?"

Gillispie, maddened at this anguish, which
he could in no way alleviate, sought comfort
by first lighting his pipe and then taking his
revolver out of his hip-pocket and playing
with it. Henderson continued to shake with
sobs, and Catherine, who had never before
in her life heard a man cry, leaned against
the door for a moment to gather courage.
Then she ran into the house quickly, laugh-
ing as she came. She took Henderson's
arms away from his face and laid him back
on the pillow, and she stooped over him
and kissed his forehead in the most matter-
of-fact way.

"That's what your mother would do if she
were here," she cried, merrily. "Where's
the water?"

She washed his face and hands a long
time, till they were cool and his convulsive
sobs had ceased. Then she took a slice of
thin bread from her basket and a spoonful
of amber jelly. She beat an egg into some
milk and dropped a little liquor within it,
and served them together on the first clean
napkin that had been in the cabin of the
three Johns since it was built

At this the great fool on the bed cried
again, only quietly, tears of weak happi-
ness running from his feverish eyes. And
Catherine straightened the disorderly cabin.
She came every day for two weeks, and by
that time Henderson, very uncertain as to the
strength of his legs, but once more accoutred
in his native pluck, sat up in a chair, for
which she had made clean soft cushions,
writing a letter to his mother. The floor
was scrubbed; the cabin had taken to itself
cupboards made of packing-boxes; it had
clothes-presses and shelves; curtains at the
windows; boxes for all sort of necessaries,
from flour to tobacco; and a cook-book on
the wall, with an inscription within which
was more appropriate than respectful.

The day that she announced that she
would have no further call to come back,
Waite, who was looking after the house
while Gillispie was afield, made a little
speech.

"After this here," he said, "we four
stands er falls together. Now look here,
there's lots of things can happen to a person
on this cussed praira, and no one be none
th' wiser. So see here, Mis' Ford, every
night one of us is a-goin' to th' roof of this
shack. From there we can see your place.
If anything is th' matter -- it don't signify
how little er how big -- you hang a lantern
on th' stick that I'll put alongside th' house
to-morrow. Yeh can h'ist th' light up with
a string, and every mornin' before we go
out we'll look too, and a white rag'll bring us
quick as we can git there. We don't say
nothin' about what we owe yeh, fur that
ain't our way, but we sticks to each other
from this on."

Catherine's eyes were moist. She looked
at Henderson. His face had no expression
in it at all. He did not even say good-by
to her, and she turned, with the tears sud-
denly dried under her lids, and walked
down the road in the twilight.

Weeks went by, and though Gillispie and
Waite were often at Catherine's, Henderson
never came. Gillispie gave it out as his
opinion that Henderson was an ungrateful
puppy; but Waite said nothing. This
strange man, who seemed like a mere unto-
ward accident of nature, had changed dur-
ing the summer. His big ill-shaped body
had grown more gaunt; his deep-set gray
eyes had sunk deeper; the gentleness which
had distinguished him even on the wild
ranges of Montana became more marked.
Late in August he volunteered to take on
himself the entire charge of the night
watch.

"It's nicer to be out at night," he said
to Catherine. "Then you don't keep look-
ing off at things; you can look inside;" and
he struck his breast with his splay hand.

Cattle are timorous under the stars. The
vastness of the plains, the sweep of the wind
under the unbroken arch, frighten them;
they are made for the close comforts of the
barn-yard; and the apprehension is con-
tagious, as every ranchman knows. Waite
realized the need of becoming good friends
with his animals. Night after night, riding
up and down in the twilight of the stars, or
dozing, rolled in his blanket, in the shelter
of a knoll, he would hear a low roar; it
was the cry of the alarmist. Then from
every direction the cattle would rise with
trembling awkwardness on their knees, and
answer, giving out sullen bellowings. Some
of them would begin to move from place to
place, spreading the baseless alarm, and
then came the time for action, else over the
plain in mere fruitless frenzy would go the
whole frantic band, lashed to madness by
their own fears, trampling each other, heed-
less of any obstacle, in pitiable, deadly rout.
Waite knew the premonitory signs well, and
at the first warning bellow he was on his
feet, alert and determined, his energy
nerved for a struggle in which he always
conquered.

Waite had a secret which he told to none,
knowing, in his unanalytical fashion, that it
would not be believed in. But soon as ever
the dark heads of the cattle began to lift
themselves, he sent a resonant voice out
into the stillness. The songs he sang were
hymns, and he made them into a sort of
imperative lullaby. Waite let his lungs
and soul fill with the breath of the night;
he gave himself up to the exaltation of
mastering those trembling brutes. Mount-
ing, melodious, with even and powerful
swing he let his full notes fall on the air
in the confidence of power, and one by one
the reassured cattle would lie down again,
lowing in soft contentment, and so fall
asleep with noses stretched out in mute
attention, till their presence could hardly
be guessed except for the sweet aroma of
their cuds.
One night in the early dusk, he saw Cath-
erine Ford hastening across the prairie with
Bill Deems. He sent a halloo out to them,
which they both answered as they ran on.
Waite knew on what errand of mercy Cath-
erine was bent, and he thought of the chil-
dren over at the cabin alone. The cattle
were quiet, the night beautiful, and he con-
cluded that it was safe enough, since he was
on his pony, to ride down there about mid-
night and see that the little ones were safe.

The dark sky, pricked with points of in-
tensest light, hung over him so beneficently
that in his heart there leaped a joy which
even his ever-present sorrow could not dis-
turb. This sorrow Waite openly admitted
not only to himself, but to others. He had
said to Catherine: "You see, I'll always hev
to love yeh. An' yeh'll not git cross with
me; I'm not goin' to be in th' way." And
Catherine had told him, with tears in her
eyes, that his love could never be but a com-
fort to any woman. And these words, which
the poor fellow had in no sense mistaken,
comforted him always, became part of his
joy as he rode there, under those piercing
stars, to look after her little ones. He found
them sleeping in their bunks, the baby tight
in Kitty's arms, the little boy above them in
the upper bunk, with his hand in the long
hair of his brown spaniel. Waite softly
kissed each of them, so Kitty, who was half
waking, told her mother afterwards, and
then, bethinking him that Catherine might
not be able to return in time for their break-
fast, found the milk and bread, and set it for
them on the table. Catherine had been
writing, and her unfinished letter lay open
beside the ink. He took up the pen and
wrote,

"The childdren was all asleep at twelv.

"J. W."

He had not more than got on his pony
again before he heard an ominous sound
that made his heart leap. It was a frantic
dull pounding of hoofs. He knew in a
second what it meant. There was a stam-
pede among the cattle. If the animals had
all been his, he would not have lost his sense
of judgment. But the realization that he
had voluntarily undertaken the care of them,
and that the larger part of them belonged
to his friends, put him in a passion of appre-
hension that, as a ranchman, was almost in-
explicable. He did the very thing of all
others that no cattle-man in his right senses
would think of doing. Gillispie and Hender-
son, talking it over afterward, were never
able to understand it. It is possible -- just
barely possible -- that Waite, still drunk on
his solitary dreams, knew what he was doing,
and chose to bring his little chapter to an
end while the lines were pleasant. At any
rate, he rode straight forward, shouting and
waving his arms in an insane endeavor to
head off that frantic mob. The noise woke
the children, and they peered from the
window as the pawing and bellowing herd
plunged by, trampling the young steers
under their feet.

In the early morning, Catherine Ford, spent
both in mind and body, came walking slowly
home. In her heart was a prayer of thanks-
giving. Mary Deems lay sleeping back in
her comfortless shack, with her little son by
her side.

"The wonder of God is in it," said Cath-
erine to herself as she walked home. "All
the ministers of all the world could not have
preached me such a sermon as I've had
to-night."

So dim had been the light and so per-
turbed her mind that she had not noticed
how torn and trampled was the road. But
suddenly a bulk in her pathway startled her.
It was the dead and mangled body of a steer.
She stooped over it to read the brand on its
flank. "It's one of the three Johns'," she
cried out, looking anxiously about her.
"How could that have happened?"

The direction which the cattle had taken
was toward her house, and she hastened
homeward. And not a quarter of a mile
from her door she found the body of Waite
beside that of his pony, crushed out of its
familiar form into something unspeakably
shapeless. In her excitement she half
dragged, half carried that mutilated body
home, and then ran up her signal of alarm
on the stick that Waite himself had erected
for her convenience. She thought it would
be a long time before any one reached her,
but she had hardly had time to bathe the
disfigured face and straighten the disfigured
body before Henderson was pounding at her
door. Outside stood his pony panting from
its terrific exertions. Henderson had not
seen her before for six weeks. Now he
stared at her with frightened eyes.

"What is it? What is it?" he cried.
"What has happened to you, my -- my
love?"

At least afterward, thinking it over as she
worked by day or tossed in her narrow bunk
at night, it seemed to Catherine that those
were the words he spoke. Yet she could
never feel sure; nothing in his manner after
that justified the impassioned anxiety of his
manner in those first few uncertain moments;
for a second later he saw the body of his
friend and learned the little that Catherine
knew. They buried him the next day in a
little hollow where there was a spring and
some wild aspens.

"He never liked the prairie," Catherine
said, when she selected the spot. "And I
want him to lie as sheltered as possible."

After he had been laid at rest, and she
was back, busy with tidying her neglected
shack, she fell to crying so that the children
were scared.

"There's no one left to care what becomes
of us," she told them, bitterly. "We might
starve out here for all that any one cares."

And all through the night her tears fell,
and she told herself that they were all for the
man whose last thought was for her and her
babies; she told herself over and over again
that her tears were all for him. After this
the autumn began to hurry on, and the snow
fell capriciously, days of biting cold giving
place to retrospective glances at summer.
The last of the vegetables were taken out of
the garden and buried in the cellar; and a
few tons of coal -- dear almost as diamonds
-- were brought out to provide against the
severest weather. Ordinarily buffalo chips
were the fuel. Catherine was alarmed at
the way her wretched little store of money
began to vanish. The baby was fretful with
its teething, and was really more care than
when she nursed it. The days shortened,
and it seemed to her that she was forever
working by lamp-light The prairies were
brown and forbidding, the sky often a mere
gray pall. The monotony of the life began
to seem terrible. Sometimes her ears ached
for a sound. For a time in the summer so
many had seemed to need her that she had
been happy in spite of her poverty and her
loneliness. Now, suddenly, no one wanted
her. She could find no source of inspiration.
She wondered how she was going to live
through the winter, and keep her patience
and her good-nature.

"You'll love me," she said, almost fiercely,
one night to the children -- "you'll love
mamma, no matter how cross and homely
she gets, won't you?"

The cold grew day by day. A strong
winter was setting in. Catherine took up
her study of medicine again, and sat over
her books till midnight. It occurred to her
that she might fit herself for nursing by
spring, and that the children could be put
with some one -- she did not dare to think
with whom. But this was the only solution
she could find to her problem of existence.

November settled down drearily. Few
passed the shack. Catherine, who had no
one to speak with excepting the children,
continually devised amusements for them.
They got to living in a world of fantasy,
and were never themselves, but always wild
Indians, or arctic explorers, or Robinson
Crusoes. Kitty and Roderick, young as
they were, found a never-ending source of
amusement in these little grotesque dreams
and dramas. The fund of money was get-
ting so low that Catherine was obliged to
economize even in the necessities. If it had
not been for her two cows, she would hardly
have known how to find food for her little
ones. But she had a wonderful way of mak-
ing things with eggs and milk, and she kept
her little table always inviting. The day
before Thanksgiving she determined that
they should all have a frolic.

"By Christmas," she said to Kitty, "the
snow may be so bad that I cannot get
to town. We'll have our high old time
now."

There is no denying that Catherine used
slang even in talking to the children. The
little pony had been sold long ago, and
going to town meant a walk of twelve miles.
But Catherine started out early in the
morning, and was back by nightfall, not
so very much the worse, and carrying in
her arms bundles which might have fatigued
a bronco.

The next morning she was up early, and
was as happy and ridiculously excited over
the prospect of the day's merrymaking as
if she had been Kitty. Busy as she was,
she noticed a peculiar oppression in the air,
which intensified as the day went on. The
sky seemed to hang but a little way above
the rolling stretch of frost-bitten grass. But
Kitty laughing over her new doll, Roderick
startling the sullen silence with his drum,
the smell of the chicken, slaughtered to
make a prairie holiday, browning in the
oven, drove all apprehensions from Cath-
erine's mind. She was a common creature.
Such very little things could make her happy.
She sang as she worked; and what with the
drumming of her boy, and the little exulting
shrieks of her baby, the shack was filled with
a deafening and exhilarating din.

It was a little past noon, when she became
conscious that there was sweeping down on
her a gray sheet of snow and ice, and not
till then did she realize what those lowering
clouds had signified. For one moment she
stood half paralyzed. She thought of every-
thing, -- of the cattle, of the chance for being
buried in this drift, of the stock of provi-
sions, of the power of endurance of the
children. While she was still thinking, the
first ice-needles of the blizzard came pepper-
ing the windows. The cattle ran bellowing
to the lee side of the house and crouched
there, and the chickens scurried for the coop.
Catherine seized such blankets and bits of
carpet as she could find, and crammed them
at windows and doors. Then she piled coal
on the fire, and clothed the children in all
they had that was warmest, their out-door gar-
ments included; and with them close about
her, she sat and waited. The wind seemed
to push steadily at the walls of the house.
The howling became horrible. She could
see that the children were crying with fright,
but she could not hear them. The air was
dusky; the cold, in spite of the fire, intol-
erable. In every crevice of the wretched
structure the ice and snow made their way.
It came through the roof, and began piling
up in little pointed strips under the crevices.
Catherine put the children all together in
one bunk, covered them with all the bed-
clothes she had, and then stood before them
defiantly, facing the west, from whence the
wind was driving. Not suddenly, but by
steady pressure, at length the window-sash
yielded, and the next moment that whirlwind
was in the house, -- a maddening tumult of
ice and wind, leaving no room for resistance;
a killing cold, against which it was futile to
fight. Catherine threw the bedclothes over
the heads of the children, and then threw
herself across the bunk, gasping and chok-
ing for breath. Her body would not have
yielded to the suffering yet, so strongly
made and sustained was it; but her dismay
stifled her. She saw in one horrified moment
the frozen forms of her babies, now so pink
and pleasant to the sense; and oblivion came
to save her from further misery.

She was alive -- just barely alive -- when
Gillispie and Henderson got there, three
hours later, the very balls of their eyes
almost frozen into blindness. But for an
instinct stronger than reason they would
never have been able to have found their
way across that trackless stretch. The chil-
dren lying unconscious under their coverings
were neither dead nor actually frozen, al-
though the men putting their hands on their
little hearts could not at first discover the
beating. Stiff and suffering as these young
fellows were, it was no easy matter to get
the window back into place and re-light the
fire. They had tied flasks of liquor about
their waists; and this beneficent fluid they
used with that sense of appreciation which
only a pioneer can feel toward whiskey. It
was hours before Catherine rewarded them
with a gleam of consciousness. Her body
had been frozen in many places. Her arms,
outstretched over her children and holding
the clothes down about them, were rigid.
But consciousness came at length, dimly
struggling up through her brain; and over
her she saw her friends rubbing and rubbing
those strong firm arms of hers with snow.

She half raised her head, with a horror of
comprehension in her eyes, and listened. A
cry answered her, -- a cry of dull pain from
the baby. Henderson dropped on his knees
beside her.

"They are all safe," he said. "And we
will never leave you again. I have been
afraid to tell you how I love you. I thought
I might offend you. I thought I ought to
wait -- you know why. But I will never let
you run the risks of this awful life alone
again. You must rename the baby. From
this day his name is John. And we will
have the three Johns again back at the old
ranch. It doesn't matter whether you love
me or not, Catherine, I am going to take
care of you just the same. Gillispie agrees
with me."

"Damme, yes," muttered Gillispie, feeling
of his hip-pocket for consolation in his old
manner.

Catherine struggled to find her voice, but
it would not come.

"Do not speak," whispered John. "Tell
me with your eyes whether you will come
as my wife or only as our sister."

Catherine told him.

"This is Thanksgiving day," said he.
"And we don't know much about praying,
but I guess we all have something in our
hearts that does just as well."

"Damme, yes," said Gillispie, again, as
he pensively cocked and uncocked his re-
volver.

-THE END-
Elia W. Peattie's short story: The three Johns

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