his desk before the iron-barred window and began to write.
DEAR FRIEND THAT WAS: Your two letters came together –– the one that you have just sent, and the one written on that same night, which I hope I may some day forget. It was not a very kind letter –– I am sorry that I should ever have offended you, but it was not gently done. No friend could ever speak so to another, I am sure. As for the cause, I am a human being, a man like other men, and I am not ashamed. Yet that I should so fail to read your mind I am ashamed. Perhaps it was my egotism, which made me over-bold, thinking that any woman could love me. But if what I offered was nothing to you, if even for a moment you hated me, it is enough. Now for all this talk of friendship –– I am not your friend and never will be; and if, after what has passed, you are my friend, I ask but one thing –– let me forget. For I will never come back, I will never write, I will never submit. Surely, with all that life offers you, you can spare me the humiliation of being angry with you.
I am now engaged in work which, out of consideration for Judge Ware, I cannot leave; otherwise I would not ask you not to write to me.
Trusting that you will remember me kindly to your mother, I remain, sincerely,
Rufus Hardy.
He signed his name at the bottom, folded the sheet carefully, and thrust the sealed envelope into an inner pocket. Then for the first time, he drew out the third letter and spread its pages before him –– a long letter, full of news, yet asking no questions. The tense lines about his lips relaxed as he read, he smiled whimsically as he heard of the queer doings of his old-time friends; how these two had run away and got married in order to escape a church wedding, how Tupper Browne had painted a likeness of Mather in Hades –– after the “Dante” of Doré –– and had been detected in the act; and then this little note, cued in casually near the end:
Kitty Bonnair has given up art for the present on account of her eyes, and has gone in for physical culture and riding lessons in the park. She dropped in at the last meeting of The Circle, and I told her how curiously father had encountered you at Bender. We all miss you very much at The Circle –– in fact, it is not doing so well of late. Kitty has not attended a meeting in months, and I often wonder where we may look for another Poet, Philosopher, and Friend –– unless you will come back! Father did not tell me where you had been or what you intended to do, but I hope you have not given up the Muse. To encourage you I will send down a book, now and then, and you may send me a poem. Is it a bargain? Then good-bye.
With best wishes,
Lucy Ware.
P. S. –– I met your father on the street the other day, and he seemed very much pleased to hear how well you were getting along.
Hardy put the letter down and sighed.
“Now there’s a thoroughly nice girl,” he said. “I wonder why she doesn’t get married.” Then, reaching for a fresh sheet of paper, he began to write, describing the beauty of the country; the noble qualities of his horse, Chapuli, the Grasshopper; the march of the vast army of sheep; Creede, Tommy, and whatnot, with all the pent-up enthusiasm of a year’s loneliness. When it was ended he looked at the letter with a smile, wondering whether to send it by freight or express. Six cents in stamps was the final solution of the problem, and as his pocketbook contained only four he stuck them on and awaited his partner’s return.
“Say, Jeff,” he called, as Creede came in from the pasture, “have you got any stamps?”
“Any which?” inquired Creede suspiciously.
“Any postage stamps –– to put on letters.”
“Huh!” exclaimed Creede. “You must think I’ve got a girl –– or important business in the States. No, I’ll tell you. The only stamp I’ve got is in a glass frame, hung up on the wall –– picture of George Washington, you know. Haven’t you never seen it? W’y, it’s right there in the parler –– jest above the pianney –– and a jim-dandy piece of steel engraving she is, too.” He grinned broadly as he concluded this running fire of jest, but his partner remained serious to the end.
“Well,” he said, “I guess I’ll go down to Moroni in the morning, then.”
“What ye goin’ down there for?” demanded Creede incredulously.
“Why, to buy a stamp, of course,” replied Hardy, “it’s only forty miles, isn’t it?” And early in the morning, true to his word, he saddled up Chapuli and struck out down the river.
From the doorway Creede watched him curiously, his lips parted in a dubious smile.
“There’s something funny goin’ on here, ladies,” he observed sagely, “something funny –– and I’m dogged if I savvy what it is.” He stooped and scooped up Tommy in one giant paw. “Well, Tom, Old Socks,” he said, holding him up where he could sniff delicately at the rafters, “you’ve got a pretty good nose, how about it, now –– can you smell a rat?” But even Tommy could not explain why a man should ride forty miles in order to buy a stamp.
CHAPTER IX
MORONI
The Mormon settlement of Moroni proved to belong to that large class of Western “cities” known as “string-towns” –– a long line of stores on either side of a main street, brick where fires have swept away the shacks, and wood with false fronts where dynamite or a change of wind has checked the conflagration; a miscellaneous conglomeration of saloons, restaurants, general stores, and livery stables, all very satisfying to the material wants of man, but in the ensemble not over-pleasing to the eye.
At first glance, Moroni might have been Reno, Nevada; or Gilroy, California; or Deming, New Mexico; or even Bender –– except for the railroad. A second glance, however, disclosed a smaller number of disconsolate cow ponies standing in front of the saloons and a larger number of family rigs tied to the horse rack in front of Swope’s Store; there was also a tithing house with many doors, a brick church, and women and children galore. And for twenty miles around there was nothing but flowing canals and irrigated fields waving with wheat and alfalfa, all so green and prosperous that a stranger from the back country was likely to develop a strong leaning toward the faith before he reached town and noticed the tithing house.
As for Hardy, his eyes, so long accustomed to the green lawns and trees of Berkeley, turned almost wistful as he gazed away across the rich fields, dotted with cocks of hay or resounding to the whirr of the mower; but for the sweating Latter Day Saints who labored in the fields, he had nothing but the pitying contempt of the cowboy. It was a fine large country, to be sure, and produced a lot of very necessary horse feed, but Chapuli shied when his feet struck the freshly sprinkled street, and somehow his master felt equally ill at ease.
Having purchased his stamp and eaten supper, he was wandering aimlessly up and down the street –– that being the only pleasure and recourse of an Arizona town outside the doors of a saloon –– when in the medley of heterogeneous sounds he heard a familiar voice boom out and as abruptly stop. It was evening and the stores were closed, but various citizens still sat along the edge of the sidewalk, smoking and talking in the semi-darkness. Hardy paused and listened a moment. The voice which he had heard was that of no ordinary man; it was deep and resonant, with a rough, overbearing note almost military in its brusqueness; but it had ceased and another voice, low and protesting, had taken its place. In the gloom he could
