The One-Way Trail: A story of the cattle country Page 5

  CHAPTER III

  IN BARNRIFF

  It has been said that the pretentiousness of a newly carpenteredWestern American settlement can only be compared to the "side" of anigger wench, weighted down under the gaudy burden of her EmancipationDay holiday gown. Although, in many cases, the analogy is not withoutaptness, yet, in frequent instances, it would be a distinct libel. Atany rate, Barnriff boasted nothing of pretentiousness. CertainlyBarnriff was not newly carpentered. Probably it never had been.

  It was one of those places that just grow from a tiny seedling; and,to judge by the anemic result of its effort, that original seedlingcould have been little better than a "scratching" post on anill-cared-for farm, or perhaps a storm shelter. Certainly it could nothave risen above an implement shed in the ranks of structural art. Thegeneral impression was in favor of the "scratching" post, for oneexpects to grow something better than weeds on a rich loam soil.

  The architect of Barnriff--if he ever existed--was probably adrunkard, not an uncommon complaint in that settlement, or a personqualified for the state asylum. The inference is drawn from strongcircumstantial evidence, and not from prejudice. As witness, thesaloon seemed to have claimed his most serious effort as a piece offinished construction. Here his weakness peeps through in nouncertain manner. The bar occupies at least half of the building, andthe fittings of it are large enough to accommodate sufficient alcoholfor an average man to swim in. His imagination must have been fullyextended in this design, for the result suggested its having beensomething in the nature of a labor of affection. The other half of thebuilding was divided up into three rooms: a tiny dining-room(obviously the pleasures of the table had no great appeal for him), asmall bedroom for the proprietor (who seemed to have been consideredleast of all), and one vast dormitory, to accommodate those whosemisfortunes of the evening made them physically incapable ofnegotiating the intricacies of the village on their way home.

  Of course, this evidence might easily have been nullified, or evenhave been turned to the architect's favor, had the rest of the villageborne testimony for him. A clever counsel defending would probablyhave declared that the architect knew the people of the village, andwas merely supplying their wants. Of course he knew them, and theirwants--he was probably one of them.

  However, the rest of the village was all against him. Had he been anabstemious man, there is no doubt but the village market-place wouldhave been a square, or a triangle, an oval, a circle, or--well, somedefinite shape. As it was, it had no definite shape. It was not evenirregular. It was nothing--just a space, with no apparent definingline.

  Then there were no definite roads--at least, the roads seemed to havehappened, and ran just where the houses permitted them. It was areversal of ordinary civilized methods, which possibly had itsadvantages. There were certainly no straight lines for the men-folk towalk after leaving the saloon at night for their homes.

  As for the houses which composed the village, they were too uncertainto be described in any but a general view of their design, and theirgrouping. In the latter, of course, the evidence was all against thedesigner of the place. Who but a madman or a drunkard would set up alaundry next to the coal yard?

  Then another thing. Two churches--they called them "churches" inBarnriff--of different denomination, side by side. On Sundays thediscord that went on was painful. The voices of the preachers were inendless conflict through the thin weather-boarding sides, and whenthe rival harmoniums "got busy" there was nothing left for theconfused congregations but to chant their rival hymns to somepopular national tune upon which they were mutually agreed beforehand.The incongruities of this sort were so many that even the mostoptimistic could not pass them unheeded.

  As regards the style of the buildings themselves, the less said aboutthem the better. They were buildings, no one could deny that; but evenan impressionist painter could claim no beauty for them. Windows anddoors, weather-boarding, and shingle roof. One need say no more,except that they were, in the main, weatherproof. But wait. There wasone little house that had a verandah and creepers growing around it.It was well painted, too, and stood out amongst its frowzy neighbors athing approaching beauty.

  But Barnriff, as a residential hamlet, was hardly worth consideringseriously. It was a topsyturvy sort of place, and its methods were inkeeping with its design. It was full of unique combinations of trade.Some of them were hardly justifiable. The doctor of the place was alsoa horse-dealer, with a side line in the veterinary business. Any toothextraction needed was forcibly performed by John Rust, the blacksmith.The baker, Jake Wilkes, shod the human foot whenever he was tired ofpunching his dough. The Methodist lay-preacher, Abe C. Horsley, soldeverything to cover up the body, whenever he wasn't concerned with thesoul. Then there was Angel Gay, an estimable butcher and a good enoughfellow; but it hardly seemed right that he should be in combinationwith Zac Restless, the carpenter, for the disposal of Barnriff'scorpses. However, these things were, and had been accepted by thevillage folk for so long that it seemed almost a pity to disturbthem.

  Barnriff, viewed from a distance, was not without a certainpicturesqueness; but the distance had to be great enough to lose sightof the uncouthness which a close inspection revealed. Besides, itssqualor did not much matter. It did not affect the temper of the folkliving within its boundaries. To them the place was a little temporary"homelet," to coin a word. For frontier people are, for the most part,transient. They only pause at such place on their fighting journeythrough the wilder life. They pass on in time to other spheres, someon an upward grade, others down the long decline, which is the road ofthe ne'er-do-well. And with each inhabitant that comes and goes, somedetail of evolution is achieved by the little hamlet through whichthey pass, until, in the course of long years, it, too, has fought itsway upward to the mathematical precision and bold glory of a moderncommercial city, or has joined in the downward march of thene'er-do-well.

  The blazing summer sun burned down upon the unsheltered village. Therewas no shade anywhere--that is, outside the houses. For the place hadgrown up on the crests of the bald, green rollers of the Westernplains as though its original seedling had been tossed there by thewanton summer breezes, and for no better reason.

  Anthony Smallbones, familiarly known to his intimates as"fussy-breeches," because he lived in a dream-fever of commercialenterprise, and believed himself to be a Napoleon of finance--he ran astore, at which he sold a collection of hardware, books, candy,stationery, notions and "delicatessen"--was on his way to theboarding-house for breakfast--there was only one boarding-house inBarnriff, and all the bachelors had their meals there.

  He was never leisurely. He believed himself to be too busy forleisure. Just now he was concentrated upon the side issues of a greatirrigation scheme that had occupied his small head for at leasttwenty-four hours, and thus it happened that he ran full tilt intoPeter Blunt before he was aware of the giant's presence. He reboundedand came to, and hurled a savage greeting at him.

  "Wher' you goin'?" he demanded.

  "Don't seem to be your way," the large man vouchsafed, with quietgood-nature.

  "No," was the surly response.

  "Kind of slack, aren't you?" inquired Peter, his deep-set blue eyestwinkling with humor. "I've eaten two hours back. This lying a-bed ismighty bad for your business schemes."

  "Schemes? Gee! I was around at half after five, man! Lying a-bed?Say, you don't know what business means." The little man sniffedscornfully.

  "Maybe you're right," Peter responded. He hunched his great looseshoulders to shift the position of a small sack of stuff he wascarrying.

  He was a man of very large physique and uncertain age. He possessed aburned up face of great strength, and good-nature, but it was soweather-stained, so grizzled, that at first sight it appeared almostharsh. He was an Englishman who had spent years and years of hardylife wandering over the remotenesses of the Western plains of America.Little was known of him, that is to say, little of that life that mustonce have been his. He was well educated, tra
veled, and possessed aninexhaustible fund of information on any subject. But beyond the factthat he had once been a soldier, and that a large slice of his lifehad been lived in such places as Barnriff, no one knew aught of him.And yet it was probable that nobody on the Western prairies was betterknown than Peter Blunt. East and west, north and south, he was knownfor a kindly nature, and kindly actions. These things, and for adevotion to prospecting for gold in what were generally considered tobe the most unlikely places.

  "Right? Why o' course I'm right. Ef you'se folk jest got busy aroundhere, we'd make Barnriff hum an elegant toon. Say, now I got a dandyscheme fer irrigatin' that land back there----"

  "Yep. You gave me that yesterday. It's a good scheme." The giant'seyes twinkled. "A great scheme. You're a wonder. But say, all you toldme that day has set my slow head busy. I've been thinking a heapsince on what you said about 'trusts.' That's it, 'trusts,' 'trusts'and 'combines.' That's the way to get on to millions of dollars.Better than scratching around, eh? Now here's an idea. I thought I'dlike to put it to you, finance and such things being your specialty.There's Angel Gay. Now he's running a fine partnership with Restless.Now you take those two as a nucleus. You yourself open a side-line indrugs, and work in with Doc Crombie, and pool the result of the four.The Doc would draw his fees for making folks sick, you'd clear ahandsome profit for poisoning them, Gay 'ud rake in his dollars forburying 'em, and Restless?--why Restless 'ud put in white pine foroak, and retire on the profits in five years. Say----"

  "What you got in that sack?" inquired Smallbones, blandly ignoring theother's jest at his expense.

  "Well, nothing that's a heap of interest. I've been scratching aroundat the head waters of the river, back there in the foot-hills."

  "Ah, 'prospects,'" observed the other, with a malicious shake of thehead. "Guess you're allus prospectin' around. I see you diggin' EveMarsham's tater patch yesterday. Don't guess you made much of a'strike' in that layout?"

  "No." Peter shook his head genially. The little man's drift wasobvious. He turned toward the one attractive cottage in thesettlement, and saw a woman's figure standing at the doorway talkingto a diminutive boy.

  "Guess though you'll likely strike more profit diggin' spuds fer folkthan you do scratching up loam and loose rocks the way you do,"Smallbones went on sourly.

  Peter nodded.

  "Sure. You're a far-seeing little man. There's a heap of gold aboutEve's home. A big heap; and I tell you, if that was my place, I'dnever need to get outside her fences to find all I needed. I'd be amillionaire."

  Smallbones looked up into his face curiously. He was thinking hard.But his imagination was limited. Finally he decided that Peter waslaughing at him.

  "Guess your humor's 'bout as elegant as a fun'ral. An' it ain't goodon an empty stummick. I pass."

  "So long," cried the giant amiably. "I'll turn that 'trust' racketover in my mind. So long."

  He strode away with great lumbering strides heading straight forhis humble, two-roomed shack. Smallbones, as he went on to theboarding-house, was full of angry contempt for the prospector. Hewas a mean man, and like most mean men he hated to be laughed at. Butwhen his anger smoothed down he found himself pitying any one whospent his life looking for profit, by wasting a glorious energy,delving for gold in places where gold was known to be non-existent.

  He ruminated on the matter as he went. And wondered. Then there cameto him the memory of vague stories of gold in the vicinity of theBarnriff. Indian stories it is true. But then Indian stories often hada knack of having remarkably truthful foundations. Immediately hisbusy brain began to construct a syndicate of townspeople to hunt upthe legends, with a small capital to carry on operations. He wouldhave the lion's share in the concern, of course, and--yes--they mightmake Peter Blunt chief operator. And by the time he reached theboarding-house all his irrigation scheme was forgotten in this newtoy.