Some notable sight was drawing the passengers, both men and women, to the window; and therefore I rose and crossed the car to see what it was. I saw near the track an enclosure, and round it some laughing men, and inside it some whirling dust, and amid the dust some horses, plunging1, huddling2, and dodging3. They were cow ponies4 in a corral, and one of them would not be caught, no matter who threw the rope. We had plenty of time to watch this sport, for our train had stopped that the engine might take water at the tank before it pulled us up beside the station platform of Medicine Bow. We were also six hours late, and starving for entertainment. The pony5 in the corral was wise, and rapid of limb. Have you seen a skilful6 boxer7 watch his antagonist8 with a quiet, incessant9 eye? Such an eye as this did the pony keep upon whatever man took the rope. The man might pretend to look at the weather, which was fine; or he might affect earnest conversation with a bystander: it was bootless. The pony saw through it. No feint hoodwinked him. This animal was thoroughly10 a man of the world. His undistracted eye stayed fixed11 upon the dissembling foe12, and the gravity of his horse-expression made the matter one of high comedy. Then the rope would sail out at him, but he was already elsewhere; and if horses laugh, gayety must have abounded13 in that corral. Sometimes the pony took a turn alone; next he had slid in a flash among his brothers, and the whole of them like a school of playful fish whipped round the corral, kicking up the fine dust, and (I take it) roaring with laughter. Through the window-glass of our Pullman the thud of their mischievous14 hoofs15 reached us, and the strong, humorous curses of the cow-boys. Then for the first time I noticed a man who sat on the high gate of the corral, looking on. For he now climbed down with the undulations of a tiger, smooth and easy, as if his muscles flowed beneath his skin. The others had all visibly whirled the rope, some of them even shoulder high. I did not see his arm lift or move. He appeared to hold the rope down low, by his leg. But like a sudden snake I saw the noose16 go out its length and fall true; and the thing was done. As the captured pony walked in with a sweet, church-door expression, our train moved slowly on to the station, and a passenger remarked, "That man knows his business."
But the passenger's dissertation17 upon roping I was obliged to lose, for Medicine Bow was my station. I bade my fellow-travellers good-by, and descended18, a stranger, into the great cattle land. And here in less than ten minutes I learned news which made me feel a stranger indeed.
My baggage was lost; it had not come on my train; it was adrift somewhere back in the two thousand miles that lay behind me. And by way of comfort, the baggage-man remarked that passengers often got astray from their trunks, but the trunks mostly found them after a while. Having offered me this encouragement, he turned whistling to his affairs and left me planted in the baggage-room at Medicine Bow. I stood deserted19 among crates20 and boxes, blankly holding my check, hungry and forlorn. I stared out through the door at the sky and the plains; but I did not see the antelope21 shining among the sage-brush, nor the great sunset light of Wyoming. Annoyance22 blinded my eyes to all things save my grievance23: I saw only a lost trunk. And I was muttering half-aloud, "What a forsaken24 hole this is!" when suddenly from outside on the platform came a slow voice: "Off to get married AGAIN? Oh, don't!"
The voice was Southern and gentle and drawling; and a second voice came in immediate25 answer, cracked and querulous. "It ain't again. Who says it's again? Who told you, anyway?"
And the first voice responded caressingly26: "Why, your Sunday clothes told me, Uncle Hughey. They are speakin' mighty27 loud o' nuptials28."
"You don't worry me!" snapped Uncle Hughey, with shrill29 heat.
And the other gently continued, "Ain't them gloves the same yu' wore to your last weddin'?"
"You don't worry me! You don't worry me!" now screamed Uncle Hughey.
Already I had forgotten my trunk; care had left me; I was aware of the sunset, and had no desire but for more of this conversation. For it resembled none that I had heard in my life so far. I stepped to the door and looked out upon the station platform.
Lounging there at ease against the wall was a slim young giant, more beautiful than pictures. His broad, soft hat was pushed back; a loose-knotted, dull-scarlet handkerchief sagged30 from his throat; and one casual thumb was hooked in the cartridge-belt that slanted31 across his hips32. He had plainly come many miles from somewhere across the vast horizon, as the dust upon him showed. His boots were white with it. His overalls33 were gray with it. The weather-beaten bloom of his face shone through it duskily, as the ripe peaches look upon their trees in a dry season. But no dinginess34 of travel or shabbiness of attire35 could tarnish36 the splendor37 that radiated from his youth and strength. The old man upon whose temper his remarks were doing such deadly work was combed and curried38 to a finish, a bridegroom swept and garnished39; but alas40 for age! Had I been the bride, I should have taken the giant, dust and all. He had by no means done with the old man.
"Why, yu've hung weddin' gyarments on every limb!" he now drawled, with admiration41. "Who is the lucky lady this trip?"
The old man seemed to vibrate. "Tell you there ain't been no other! Call me a Mormon, would you?"
"Why, that--"
"Call me a Mormon? Then name some of my wives. Name two. Name one. Dare you!"
"--that Laramie wido' promised you--'
"Shucks!"
"--only her doctor suddenly ordered Southern climate and--"
"Shucks! You're a false alarm."
"--so nothing but her lungs came between you. And next you'd most got united with Cattle Kate, only--"
"Tell you you're a false alarm!"
"--only she got hung."
"Where's the wives in all this? Show the wives! Come now!"
"That corn-fed biscuit-shooter at Rawlins yu' gave the canary--"
"Never married her. Never did marry--"
"But yu' come so near, uncle! She was the one left yu' that letter explaining how she'd got married to a young cyard-player the very day before her ceremony with you was due, and--"
"Oh, you're nothing; you're a kid; you don't amount to--"
"--and how she'd never, never forgot to feed the canary."
"This country's getting full of kids," stated the old man, witheringly. "It's doomed42." This crushing assertion plainly satisfied him. And he blinked his eyes with renewed anticipation43. His tall tormentor44 continued with a face of unchanging gravity, and a voice of gentle solicitude45: "How is the health of that unfortunate--"
"That's right! Pour your insults! Pour 'em on a sick, afflicted46 woman!" The eyes blinked with combative47 relish48.
"Insults? Oh, no, Uncle Hughey!"
"That's all right! Insults goes!"
"Why, I was mighty relieved when she began to recover her mem'ry. Las' time I heard, they told me she'd got it pretty near all back. Remembered her father, and her mother, and her sisters and brothers, and her friends, and her happy childhood, and all her doin's except only your face. The boys was bettin' she'd get that far too, give her time. But I reckon afteh such a turrable sickness as she had, that would be expectin' most too much."
At this Uncle Hughey jerked out a small parcel. "Shows how much you know!" he cackled. "There! See that! That's my ring she sent me back, being too unstrung for marriage. So she don't remember me, don't she? Ha-ha! Always said you were a false alarm."
The Southerner put more anxiety into his tone. "And so you're a-takin' the ring right on to the next one!" he exclaimed. "Oh, don't go to get married again, Uncle Hughey! What's the use o' being married?"
"What's the use?" echoed the bridegroom, with scorn. "Hm! When you grow up you'll think different."
"Course I expect to think different when my age is different. I'm havin' the thoughts proper to twenty-four, and you're havin' the thoughts proper to sixty."
"Fifty!" shrieked49 Uncle Hughey, jumping in the air.
The Southerner took a tone of self-reproach. "Now, how could I forget you was fifty," he murmured, "when you have been telling it to the boys so careful for the last ten years!"
Have you ever seen a cockatoo--the white kind with the top-knot--enraged by insult? The bird erects50 every available feather upon its person. So did Uncle Hughey seem to swell51, clothes, mustache, and woolly white beard; and without further speech he took himself on board the Eastbound train, which now arrived from its siding in time to deliver him.
Yet this was not why he had not gone away before. At any time he could have escaped into the baggage-room or withdrawn52 to a dignified53 distance until his train should come up. But the old man had evidently got a sort of joy from this teasing. He had reached that inevitable54 age when we are tickled55 to be linked with affairs of gallantry, no matter how.
With him now the Eastbound departed slowly into that distance whence I had come. I stared after it as it went its way to the far shores of civilization. It grew small in the unending gulf56 of space, until all sign of its presence was gone save a faint skein of smoke against the evening sky. And now my lost trunk came back into my thoughts, and Medicine Bow seemed a lonely spot. A sort of ship had left me marooned57 in a foreign ocean; the Pullman was comfortably steaming home to port, while I--how was I to find Judge Henry's ranch58? Where in this unfeatured wilderness59 was Sunk Creek60? No creek or any water at all flowed here that I could perceive. My host had written he should meet me at the station and drive me to his ranch. This was all that I knew. He was not here. The baggage-man had not seen him lately. The ranch was almost certain to be too far to walk to, to-night. My trunk--I discovered myself still staring dolefully after the vanished East-bound; and at the same instant I became aware that the tall man was looking gravely at me,--as gravely as he had looked at Uncle Hughey throughout their remarkable61 conversation.
To see his eye thus fixing me and his thumb still hooked in his cartridge-belt, certain tales of travellers from these parts forced themselves disquietingly into my recollection. Now that Uncle Hughey was gone, was I to take his place and be, for instance, invited to dance on the platform to the music of shots nicely aimed?
"I reckon I am looking for you, seh," the tall man now observed.
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1
plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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huddling
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| n. 杂乱一团, 混乱, 拥挤 v. 推挤, 乱堆, 草率了事 | |
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dodging
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| n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避 | |
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ponies
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| 矮种马，小型马( pony的名词复数 )； ￡25 25 英镑 | |
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pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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boxer
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| n.制箱者，拳击手 | |
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antagonist
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| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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noose
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| n.绳套，绞索（刑）；v.用套索捉；使落入圈套；处以绞刑 | |
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dissertation
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| n.（博士学位）论文，学术演讲，专题论文 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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crates
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| n. 板条箱, 篓子, 旧汽车 vt. 装进纸条箱 | |
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antelope
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| n.羚羊；羚羊皮 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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caressingly
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| 爱抚地，亲切地 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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nuptials
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| n.婚礼；婚礼( nuptial的名词复数 ) | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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sagged
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| 下垂的 | |
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slanted
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| 有偏见的； 倾斜的 | |
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hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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dinginess
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| n.暗淡，肮脏 | |
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attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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tarnish
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| n.晦暗，污点；vt.使失去光泽；玷污 | |
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splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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curried
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| adj.加了咖喱（或咖喱粉的），用咖哩粉调理的 | |
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garnished
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| v.给（上餐桌的食物）加装饰( garnish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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42
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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tormentor
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| n. 使苦痛之人, 使苦恼之物, 侧幕 =tormenter | |
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45
solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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46
afflicted
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| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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combative
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| adj.好战的；好斗的 | |
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48
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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49
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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50
erects
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| v.使直立，竖起( erect的第三人称单数 )；建立 | |
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51
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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52
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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53
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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54
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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55
tickled
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| （使）发痒( tickle的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）愉快，逗乐 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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57
marooned
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| adj.被围困的；孤立无援的；无法脱身的 | |
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58
ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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59
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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