The Moccasin Ranch: A Story of Dakota

  Produced by Roger Frank and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  "STAND OUT O' MY WAY, OR I'LL KILL YOU!" See page 104]

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  THE MOCCASIN RANCH

  A STORY OF DAKOTABYHAMLIN GARLAND

  AUTHOR OF"THE CAPTAIN OF THE GRAY-HORSE TROOP""MAIN-TRAVELLED ROADS" etc.

  NEW YORK AND LONDONHARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERSMCMIX

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  Copyright, 1909, by Hamlin Garland.

  All rights reserved.

  Published September, 1909.

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  CONTENTS

  CHAP. PAGE

  I. MARCH 1 II. MAY 24 III. JUNE 33 IV. AUGUST 49 V. NOVEMBER 67 VI. DECEMBER 86 VII. CONCLUSION 128

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  THE MOCCASIN RANCH

  I

  MARCH

  Early in the gray and red dawn of a March morning in 1883, two wagonsmoved slowly out of Boomtown, the two-year-old "giant of the plains." Asthe teams drew past the last house, the strangeness of the sceneappealed irresistibly to the newly arrived immigrants. The town laybehind them on the level, treeless plain like a handful of blockspitched upon a russet robe. Its houses were mainly shanties of pine,one-story in height, while here and there actual tents gleamed in thehalf-light with infinite suggestion of America's restless pioneers.

  The wind blew fresh and chill from the west. The sun rose swiftly, andthe thin scarf of morning cloud melted away, leaving an illimitablesweep of sky arching an almost equally majestic plain. There was apoignant charm in the air--a smell of freshly uncovered sod, a width andsplendor in the view which exalted the movers beyond words.

  The prairie was ridged here and there with ice, and the swales were fullof posh and water. Geese were slowly winging their way against the wind,and ducks were sitting here and there on the ice-rimmed ponds. The sodwas burned black and bare, and so firm with frost that the wagonchuckled noisily as it passed over it. The whistle of the driver calledafar, startling the ducks from their all-night resting-places.

  One of the teams drew a load of material for a house, together with afew household utensils. The driver, a thin-faced, blue-eyed man ofthirty, walked beside his horses. His eyes were full of wonder, but hewalked in silence.

  The second wagon was piled high with boxes and barrels of groceries andhardware, and was driven by a handsome young fellow with a large brownmustache. His name was Bailey, and he seemed to be pointing the way forhis companion, whom he called Burke.

  As the sun rose, a kind of transformation-scene took place. The wholelevel land lifted at the horizon till the teams seemed crawling foreverat bottom of an enormous bowl. Mystical forms came intoview--grotesquely elongated, unrecognizable. Hills twenty, thirty milesaway rose like apparitions, astonishingly magnified. Willows becameelms, a settler's shanty rose like a shot-tower--towns hitherto unseenswam and palpitated in the yellow flood of light like shaken bannerslow-hung on unseen flagstaffs.

  Burke marched with uplifted face. He was like one suddenly wakened in anew world, where nothing was familiar. Not a tree or shrub was in sight.Not a mark of plough or harrow--everything was wild, and to him mysticaland glorious. His eyes were like those of a man who sees a world at itsbirth.

  Hour after hour they moved across the swelling land. Hour after hour,while the yellow sun rolled up the slope, putting to flight the morningshapes on the horizon--striking the plain into level prose again, andwarming the air into genial March. Hour after hour the horses toiled ontill the last cabin fell away to the east, like a sail at sea, till theroad faded into a trail almost imperceptible on the firm sod.

  * * * * *

  And so at last they came to the land of "the straddle-bug"--thesquatters' watch dog--three boards nailed together (like a stack of armymuskets) to mark a claim. Burke resembled a man taking his firstsea-voyage. His eyes searched the plain restlessly, and his braindreamed. Bailey, an old settler--of two years' experience--whistled andsang and shouted lustily to his tired beasts.

  It drew toward noon. Bailey's clear voice shouted back, "When we reachthat swell we'll see the Western Coteaux." The Western Coteaux! ToBurke, the man from Illinois, this was like discovering a new range ofmountains.

  "There they rise," Bailey called, a little later.

  Burke looked away to the west. Low down on the horizon lay a long, bluebank, hardly more substantial than a line of cloud. "How far off arethey?" he asked, in awe.

  "About twenty-five miles. Our claims are just about in line with thatgap." Bailey pointed with his whip. "And about twelve miles from here.We're on the unsurveyed land now."

  Burke experienced a thrill of exultation as he looked around him. In thedistance, other carriages were crawling like beetles. A couple ofshanties, newly built on a near-by ridge, glittered like gold in thesun, and the piles of yellow lumber and the straddle-bugs increased innumber as they left the surveyed land and emerged into the finer tractwhich lay as yet unmapped. At noon they stopped and fed their animals,eating their own food on the ground beside their wagons.

  While they rested, Bailey kept his eyes on their backward trail,watching for his partner, Rivers. "It's about time Jim showed up," hesaid, once again.

  Burke seemed anxious. "They won't get off the track, will they?"

  Bailey laughed at his innocence. "Jim Rivers has located aboutseventy-five claims out here this spring. I guess he won't lose hisbearings."

  "I'm afraid Blanche'll get nervous."

  "Oh, Jim will take care of her. She won't be lonesome, either. He's agreat favorite with the women, always gassin'--Well, this won't feed thebaby," he ended, leaping to his feet.

  They were about to start on when a swift team came into sight. Thecarriage was a platform-spring wagon, with a man and woman in the frontseat, and in the rear a couple of alert young fellows sat holding riflesin their hands and eyeing the plain for game.

  "Hello!" said the driver, in a pleasant shout. "How you getting on?"

  "Pretty well," replied Bailey.

  "Should say you were. I didn't know but we'd fail to overhaul you."

  Burke went up to the wagon. "Well, Blanche, what do you think ofit--far's you've got?"

  "Not very much," replied his wife, candidly. She was a handsome woman,but looked tired and a little cross, at the moment. "I guess I'll getout and ride with you," she added.

  "Why, no! What for?" asked Rivers, hastily. "Why not go right along outto the store with us?"

  "Why, yes; that's the thing to do, Blanche. We'll be along soon," saidBurke. "Stay where you are."

  She sat down again, as if ashamed to give her reason for not going onwith these strange men.

  "I was just in the middle of a story, too," added Rivers, humorously."Well, so long." And, cracking his whip, he started on. "We'll havesupper ready when you arrive!" he shouted back.

  Burke could not forget the look in his wife's eyes. She was right. Itwould have been pleasanter if she had stayed with him. They had beenmarried several years, but his love for her had not grown less. Perhapsfor the reason that she dominated him.

  She was a fine, powerful girl, while he was a plain man, slightlystooping, with thin face and prominent larynx. She had brought a littleproperty to him, which was unusual eno
ugh to give her a sense ofimportance in all business transactions of the firm.

  She had consented to the sale of their farm in Illinois with greatreluctance, and, as Burke rode along on his load of furniture, herecalled it all very vividly, and it made him anxious to know herimpression of his claim. As he took her position for a moment, he got asudden sense of the loneliness and rawness of this new land which he hadnot felt before. The woman's point of view was so different from that ofthe adventurous man.

  Twice they were forced to partly unload in order to cross ravines wherethe frost had fallen out, and it was growing dark as they rose over thelow swell, from which they could see a dim, red star, which Burkeguessed to be the shanty light, even before Bailey called, exultantly:

  "There she blows!"

  The wind had grown chill and moist, the quacking ducks were thickeningon the pools, and strange noises came from ghostly swells and hiddencreeks. The tired horses moved forward with soundless feet upon the sod,which had softened during the day. They quickened their steps when theysaw the lantern shine from the pole before the building.

  The light of the lamp, and the sight of Blanche standing in the doorwayof the cabin at the back of the store-room, was a beautiful sight toBurke. Set over against the wet, dark prairie, with its boundless sweepof unknown soil, the shanty seemed a radiant palace.

  "Supper's all ready, Willard!" called Blanche, and the tired man's heartleaped with joy to hear the tender, familiar cadence of her voice. Itwas her happy voice, and when she used it men were her slaves.

  Bailey came out with one of the land-seekers.

  "Go in to supper, boys; we'll take care of the teams," was his heartycommand.

  The tired freighters gladly did as they were bid, and, scooping up somewater from a near-by hollow on the sod, hurriedly washed their faces andsat down to a supper of chopped potatoes, bacon and eggs, and tea (whichBlanche placed steaming hot upon the table), in such joy as only theweary worker knows.

  Mrs. Burke was in high spirits. The novelty of the trip, the rudeshanty, with its litter of shavings, and its boxes for chairs, thebundles of hay for beds, gave her something like the same pleasure apicnic might have done. It appealed to the primeval in her. She forgother homesickness and her vague regrets, and her smiles filled herhusband with content.

  Rivers and the others soon came in, and after supper there was a greatdeal of energetic talk. The young land-seekers were garrulous withdelight over their claims, which they proudly exalted above the stumpsand stones of the farms "back home."

  "Why, it took three generations of my folks to clear off forty acres ofland," said one of them. "They just wore themselves out on it. I toldHank he could have it, and I'd go West and see if there wasn't some landout there which wouldn't take a man's lifetime to grub out and smoothdown. And I've found it."

  Rivers had plainly won the friendship of Mrs. Burke, for they werehaving a jolly time together over by the table, where he was helping towash the dishes. He had laughing, brown eyes, and a pleasant voice, andwas one of the most popular of the lawyers and land-agents in Boomtown.There was a boyish quality in him which kept him giving and takingjocular remarks.

  Bailey sometimes said: "Rivers would shine up to a seventy-year-oldSioux squaw if she was the only woman handy, but he don't mean anythingby it--it's just his way. He's one o' the best-hearted fellers that everlived." Others took a less favorable view of the land-agent, and refusedto trust him.

  Bailey assumed command. "Now, fellers," he said, "we'll vamoose theranch while Mrs. Burke turns in." He opened the way to the store-room,and the men filed out, all but Burke, who remained to put up the calicocurtain with which his wife had planned to shield her bed.

  Blanche was a little disturbed at the prospect of sleeping behind such athin barrier.

  "Oh, it's no worse than the sleeping-car," her husband argued.

  A little later he stuck his head in at the store-room door. "All ready,Bailey."

  Bailey was to sleep on the rickety lounge, which served as bedstead andchair, and the other men were to make down as best they could in thegrocery.

  Bailey went out to the front of the shanty to look at the lantern he hadset up on a scantling. Rivers followed him.

  "Going to leave that up there all night?"

  "Yes. May keep some poor devil from wandering around all night on theprairie."

  Rivers said, with an abrupt change in his voice:

  "Mrs. Burke is a hummer, isn't she? How'd his flat-chested nibs manageto secure a 'queen' like that? I must get married, Bailey--no use."

  Bailey took his friend's declaration more lightly than it deserved. Helaughed. "Wish you would, Jim, and relieve me of the cookin'."

  Blanche could hardly compose herself to sleep. "Isn't it wonderful," shewhispered. "It's all so strange, like being out of the world, someway."

  Burke heard the ducks quacking down in the "Moggason," and he, too,_felt_ the silence and immensity of the plain outside. It was enormous,incredible in its wildness. "I believe we're going to like it out here,Blanche," he said.

  Blanche Burke rose to a beautiful and busy day. The breakfast which shecooked in the early dawn was savory, and Rivers, who helped her bybringing water and building the fire, was full of life and humor. Heseemed to have no other business than to "wait and tend" on her.

  He called her out to see the sunrise. "Isn't this great!" he called,exultantly. Flights of geese were passing, and the noise of ducks cameto them from every direction. He pointed out the distant hills, andcalled her attention to a solemn row of sand-hill cranes down by theswale, causing her to see the wonder and beauty of this new world.

  "You're going to like it out here," he said, with conviction. "It is aglorious climate, and you'll soon have more neighbors than you want."

  After breakfast Bailey and Burke left the "Moggason Ranch"--as Baileycalled the store and shanty--to carry the lumber and furniture belongingto Burke on to his claim, two or three miles away. Rivers remained towork in the store, and to meet some other land-seekers, and Mrs. Burkeagreed to stay and get dinner for them all.

  During this long forenoon, Rivers exerted himself to prevent her frombeing lonely. He was busy about the store, but he found time to keep herfire going and to bring water and to tell her of his bachelor life withBailey. She had never had anything like this swift and smiling service,and she felt very grateful to him. He encouraged her to make some piesand to prepare a "thumping dinner." "It will seem like being marriedagain," he said, with a chuckle.

  Burke and Bailey returned at noon to dinner.

  "Mrs. Burke, you can sleep in your own ranch to-night," announcedBailey.

  "I guess it will be a ranch."

  "It'll be new, anyhow," her husband said, with a timid smile.

  After dinner she straightened things up a little, and as she got intothe wagon she said: "Well, there, Mr. Rivers. _You'll_ have to take careo' things now."

  Rivers leered comically, sighed, and looked at his partner. "Bailey, Ididn't know what we needed before; I know now. We need a woman."

  Bailey smiled. "Go get one. Don't ask a clumsy old farmer like me toprovide a cook."

  "I'll get married to-morrow," said Rivers, with a droll inflection. Theyall laughed, and Burke clucked at the team. "Well, good-bye, boys; seeyou later."

  After leaving the ranch they struck out over the prairie where nowagon-wheel but theirs had ever passed. Here were the buffalo trails,deep-worn ruts all running from northwest to southeast. Here lay thewhite bones of elk in shining crates, ghastly on the fire-blackened sod.Beside the shallow pools, buffalo horns, in testimony of the tragicpast, lay scattered thickly. Everywhere could be seen the signs of theswarming herds of bison which once swept to and fro from north to southover the plain, all so silent and empty now.

  A few antelope scurried away out of the path, and a wolf sitting on aheight gravely watched the teams as if marvelling at their coming. Thewind swept out of the west clear and cold. The sky held no shred ofcloud. The air was like
some all-powerful intoxicant, and when Baileypointed out a row of little stakes and said, "There's the railroad,"their imagination supplied the trains, the wheat, the houses, the townswhich were to come.

  At the claim Blanche sat on a box and watched the two men as theyswiftly built the little cabin which was to be her home. Their hammersrang merrily, and soon she was permitted to go inside and look up at thegreat sky which roofed it in. This was an emotional moment to her. Asshe sat there listening to the voices of the men who were drawing thisfragile shelter around her, a great awe fell upon her. It seemed as ifshe had drawn a little nearer to the Almighty Creator of the universe.Here, where no white man had ever set foot, she was watching thefounding of her own house. Was it a home? Could it ever be a home?

  Swiftly the roof closed over her head, and the floor crept under herfeet. The stove came in, and the flour-barrel, and the few householdarticles which they had brought followed, and as the sun was settingthey all sat down to supper in her new home.

  The smell of the fresh pine was round them. Geese were flying over.Cranes were dancing down by the ponds, prairie-chickens were _booming_.The open doorway--doorless yet--looked out on the sea-like plainglorified by the red sun just sinking over the purple line of treelesshills to the west. It was the bare, raw materials of a State, and theywere in at the beginning of it.

  After Bailey left them the husband and wife sat in silence. When theyspoke it was in low voices. It seemed as if God could hear what theysaid--that He was just there behind the glory of the western clouds.