"Oh, it's no good saying I'm sorry," he broke out at last. "It was my fault, letting you ride behind that brute. Thank God, you're not hurt! And I'm only too glad it wasn't worse. I'm always doing some unfortunate, ignoble thing. I want to take care of you and make you happy, and I would begin by putting your very life in danger."
"It wasn't ignoble," said the girl, and again he felt her hand upon his arm. "It was grand. You went straight, and you brought us through. I'm not hurt. I was frightened, but I am not hurt."
"You've pluck," said Franklin. Then, scorning to urge anything further of his suit at this time of her disadvantage, though feeling a strange new sense of nearness to her, now that they had seen this distress in common, he drove home rapidly as he might through the gathering dusk, anxious now only for her comfort. At the house he lifted her from the buggy, and as he did so kissed her cheek. "Dear little woman," he whispered, "good-bye." Again he doubted whether he had heard or not the soft whisper of a faint "Good-bye!"
"But you must come in," she said.
"No, I must go. Make my excuses," he said. "Good-bye!" The horses sprang sharply forward. He was gone.
The roll of the wheels and the rhythmic hoof-beats rapidly lessened to the ear as Franklin drove on into the blackening night. In her own little room Mary Ellen sat, her face where it might have been seen in profile had there been a light or had the distant driver looked round to see. Mary Ellen listened — listened until she could hear hoof and wheel no more. Then she cast herself upon the bed, face downward, and lay motionless and silent. Upon the little dresser lay a faded photograph, fallen forward also upon its face, lying unnoticed and apparently forgot.
CHAPTER XXV BILL WATSON
The sheriff of Ellisville sat in his office oiling the machinery of the law; which is to say, cleaning his revolver. There was not yet any courthouse. The sheriff was the law. Twelve new mounds on the hillside back of the Cottage Hotel showed how faithfully he had executed his duties as judge and jury since he had taken up his office at the beginning of the "cow boom" of Ellisville. His right hand had found somewhat to do, and he had done it with his might.
Ellisville was near the zenith of its bad eminence. The entire country had gone broad-horn. Money being free, whisky was not less so. The bar of the Cottage was lined perpetually. Wild men from the range rode their horses up the steps and into the bar-room, demanding to be served as they sat in the saddle, as gentlemen should. Glass was too tempting to the six-shooters of these enthusiasts, and the barkeeper begged the question by stowing away the fragments of his mirror and keeping most of his bottles out of sight. More than once he was asked to hold up a bottle of whisky so that some cow-puncher might prove his skill by shooting the neck off from the flask. The bartender was taciturn and at times glum, but his face was the only one at the bar that showed any irritation or sadness. This railroad town was a bright, new thing for the horsemen of the trail — a very joyous thing. No funeral could check their hilarity; no whisky could daunt their throats, long seared with alkali.
It was notorious that after the civil war human life was held very cheap all over America, it having been seen how small a thing is a man, how little missed may be a million men taken bodily from the population. Nowhere was life cheaper than on the frontier, and at no place on that frontier of less value than at this wicked little city. Theft was unknown, nor was murder recognised by that name, always being referred to as a "killing." Of these "killings" there were very many.
The sheriff of Ellisville looked thoughtful as he tested the machinery of the law. He had a warrant for a new bad man who had come up from the Indian nations, and who had celebrated his first day in town by shooting two men who declined to get off the sidewalk, so that he could ride his horse more comfortably there. The sheriff left the warrant on the table, as was his custom, this paper being usually submitted with the corpse at the inquest. The sheriff hummed a tune as he cleaned his revolver. He was the law.
Bill Watson, the sheriff of Ellisville, was a heavily built man, sandy-haired, red-mustached, and solid. His legs were bowed and his carriage awkward. He had thick, clumsy-looking fingers, whose appearance belied their deftness. Bill Watson had gone through the Quantrell raid in his time. It was nothing to him when he was to be killed. Such a man is careful in his shooting, because he is careless of being shot, having therefore a vast advantage over the desperado of two or three victims, who does not yet accept the fact that his own days are numbered. The only trouble in regard to this new bad man from below was that his mental attitude on this point was much the same as that of Sheriff Bill Watson. Therefore the sheriff was extremely careful about the oiling of the cylinder.
The great cattle drive was at its height. Buyers from the territorial ranges of the North and Northwest, now just beginning to open up, bid in market against the men from the markets of the East. Prices advanced rapidly. Men carried thousands of dollars in the pockets of their greasy "chaps." Silver was no longer counted. There were hardware stores which sold guns and harness-shops which sold saddles. There were twoscore saloons which held overflow meetings, accommodating those whom the Cottage bar would not hold. There were three barber-shops, to which went only the very weary. The corral of the Cottage, where the drovers stopped, was large enough to hold two hundred horses, with comfortable space for roping, and the snubbing post was grooved with the wear of many ropes. The central street needed no paving, for it was worn hard as flint. Long rows of cattle chutes lined the railroad yards, whence came continuous din of bellowing, crowding, maddened cattle, handled with ease and a certain exultation by men who had studied nothing but this thing. Horsemen clattered up and down the street day and night — riding, whether drunk or sober, with the incomparable confidence of the greatest horse country the world has ever known. Everywhere was the bustle of a unique commerce, mingled with a colossal joy of life. The smokes from the dugouts and shacks now began to grow still more numerous in the region round about, but there were not many homes, because there were not many women. For this reason men always kill each other very much more gladly and regularly than they do in countries where there are many women, it appearing to them, perhaps, that in a womanless country life is not worth the living. A few "hay ranches," a few fields even of "sod corn," now began to show here and there, index of a time to come, but for the most part this was yet a land of one sex and one occupation. The cattle trade monopolized the scene. The heaps of buffalo bones were now neglected. The long-horned cattle of the white men were coming in to take the place of the curved-horned cattle of the Indians. The curtain of the cattle drama of the West was now rung up full.
The sheriff finished the cleaning of his six-shooter