The snow,that morning,lay in drifts from five to eight inches across the trail,and to the height of several feet up against those rock walls raising,as on vast artificial tables,the higher stretches of the Kiowa country.But by noon the plain was scarcely streaked with white and when the sun set there was nothing to suggest that a snowflake had ever fallen in that sand-strewn world.The interminable reaches,broken only by the level uplands marked from the plain by their perpendicular walls,and the Wichita Mountains,as faint and unsubstantial to the eye as curved images of smoke against the sky--these dreary monotonies and remotenesses naturally oppress the traveler with a sense of his insignificance.The vast silences,too,of brooding,treeless wastes,sun-baked river-beds,shadowless brown squares standing for miles at a brief height above the shadowless brown floor of the plain--silences amidst which only the wind finds a voice--these,too,insist drearily on the nothingness of man.
But Wilfred and Lahoma were not thus affected.The somethingness of man had never to them been so thrillingly evident.They saw and heard that which was not,except for those having eyes and ears to apprehend--roses in the sand,bird-song in the desert.And when the rude cabins and hasty tents of the last stage-station in Greer County showed dark and white against the horizon of a spring-like morning,Wilfred cried exultantly:
The end of the journey!
And Lahoma,suddenly showing in her cheeks all the roses that had opened in her dreams,repeated gaily,yet a little brokenly:
The end of the journey!
The end of the journey meant a wedding.The plains blossom with endless flower-gardens and the mountains sing together when the end of the journey means a wedding.
Leaving Lahoma at the small new hotel from whose boards the sun began boiling out resin as soon as it was well aloft,Wilfred hurried after a fresh horse to carry him at once to the cove,ten miles away.Warning must be given to Brick Willock first of all.Lahoma even had a wild hope that
Brick might devise some means whereby he could attend the wedding without danger of arrest,but to Wilfred this seemed impossible.
He had gone but a few steps from the hotel when he came face to face with the sheriff of Greer County.Cutting short his old friend's outburst of pleasure:
Look here,Mizzoo,said Wilfred,drawing him aside from the curious throng on the sidewalk,have you got a warrant against Brick Willock?
Mizzoo tapped his breast.Here!,he said;know where he is?Wilfred sighed with relief:At any rate,YOU don't!he cried.No--'rat him!Where're you going,Bill?
I want a horse...No use riding over to the cove,remarked his friend,with a grin.That is,unless you want to call on some friends of mine--deputies;they're living in the dugout,just laying for Brick to show himself.
But,MIZZOO!expostulated Wilfred,why are you taking so much trouble against my best friend?The warrant ought to be enough;and if you can't get a chance to serve it on him,that's not your fault.Your deputies haven't any right in that cove,and I'm going to smoke 'em out.
Mizzoo chewed,with a deprecatory shake of his head.See here,old tap,he murmured,don't you say nothing about being Brick Willock's friend.The whole country is roused against him.Heard of them three bodies?
Wilfred explained that he had just come to town.
Well,good lord,then,the pleasure I'm going to have in telling you something you don't know,and something that's full of meat!Let's go wheres we can sit down--this ain't no standing news.The lank red-faced sheriff started across the street without looking to see if he were followed.
He did not stop till he was in his room at the hotel.Now,he said,locking the door,sit down.Yes,you BET.I got a warrant against Brick Willock!It was sworn out by a fellow named Jeremiah Kimball--you know him as 'Red.'The form's regular,charges weighty.Brick Willock was once a member of Red Kimball's gang;he's the only one that didn't come in to get his amnesty.See?Well,he killed Red's brother--shot 'im.
Gledware's coming on to witness to it.Willock will claim he done the deed to save Gledware's life--his and his little gal's.But Gledware will show it was otherwise.Red told me all about it.Brick's a murderer,and worst of all,he's a murderer without an amnesty--that's the only difference between him and Red.Well,old tap,I took my oath to do my duty.You know what that signifies.
But there's no truth in all this rot.Brick HAD to shoot Kansas Kimball--
Well,let him show that in court.My business is to take him alive.That ain't all,that's just the preface.Listen!If you'll believe me,the stage that Red and his pards was in--coming here to swear out the warrant,they was--that there stage was set on by this friend of yours--yes,Brick has gathered together some of his old pards and is a highwayman--why,he shot one of Red's witnesses,and he shot the driver!
I know something about that holdup,cried Wilfred scornfully.It must have been done by Indians.
Red SAW Brick amongst the gang.He RECOGNIZED him.Well,Red and his other pard gets on horses they cuts loose,and comes like lightning,and gets here,and tells the story--and maybe you think this community ain't a-rearing and a-charging and a-sniffing for blood!There'd he more excitement against Brick Willock if there was more community,but such as they is,is concentrated.
Mizzoo,listen to reason.Don't you understand that Red wants revenge,and has misrepresented this Indian attack to tally with his other lies?
I wouldn't say nothing against Red,old tap.It ain't gentlemanly to call dead folk liars.
Dead folk!echoed Wilfred,starting up.
I KNOWED you didn't understand that Red's off the trail forever,Mizzoo rejoined gently.I knowed you wouldn't be accusing him so rancid,had you been posted on his funeral.
Wilfred felt a great relief,then a great wonder.
