Frontier and pioneer life -- Idaho -- Fiction; Siblings -- Fiction; Western stories
"That's right. But there's ways of crawling through the fence when the
gate's shut. I shouldn't wonder but he'll try to buy your brother out."
"Oh, Rob would never sell! He's going to raise cattle!"
"That's good money, all right; but if Joyce wants that water hole as
bad as I reckon he does, he'll put up a bunch of money for it. Well,"
he added, glancing out, "we're pretty near there."
Harriet began to collect her luggage and the young man rose. "My name's
Garnett," he said hesitatingly. "Maybe we'll meet up on the prairie."
"Oh, I hope so," Harriet said smiling, and held out her hand.
As the train pulled into the station she looked eagerly among the crowd
waiting on the platform, but did not see her brother. She had stepped
down upon the cindery track and was wondering what she had better do
when a voice exclaimed, "Hello, sis! Got here safely, did you?"
"Bobs!" Harriet turned quickly and then faltered. She had expected to
find a slim, pale boy, wearing glasses and very fastidious about his
collars and neckties. She was facing a big, sunbrowned man without
glasses, who wore overalls, a gray flannel shirt, a sheepskin vest and
huge laced boots; but he was smiling and he gripped her arm and kissed
her.
"Bobs!" she cried. "I didn't know you."
"Don't worry," Rob told her. "You won't know yourself either in six
weeks. Let's see. Got your traps? We'll go right over to Kenny's.
Supper'll be ready as soon as you've washed the cinders out of your
eyes. I've been so busy loading up for the ranch that I almost forgot
to meet the train."
"Kenny's," the old hotel of the cattle days before there had been a
town, stood just across the street, and every one who had left the
train appeared to be going there for supper. When Harriet and Rob went
in, a circle of miners, ranchers, sheep herders and cattle men had
already gathered around the big office stove. They were gossiping in a
cloud of tobacco smoke; another group hung over the clerk's desk.
Among them moved a big, red-cheeked woman, the hotel-keeper's wife. She
nodded to Rob. "How do, Mr. Holliday? Your sister's come, I see."
As Rob introduced Harriet to Mrs. Kenny, the good-hearted Irishwoman
held out her hand with words of welcome.
The big dining room was rigorously clean; the oilclothed floor almost
reflected the electric lights; plates and glasses shone; two trim
young women waited on the guests. But the guests themselves! They
were all men, dressed in what Harriet mentally called "workmen's
clothes"--overalls, flannel shirts, corduroy trousers, vests, but no
coats. Unshaved, weatherbeaten, scarred and lined by hard experience,
these men seemed as rough and repellent to the dainty, carefully reared
girl as the mountains of this stranger land. As she was eating her
supper, taking furtive glances down the long table, she heard a voice
at her shoulder and saw Rob turn to speak to an old man.
"Axcuse me, Holliday, but it's just a worrud I'm wantin' wit' yourself."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account