30,000 On the Hoof. Zane Grey

a box he took canvas bags of varying sizes, which he set down side by side. He emptied a burlap sack of jangling things that proved to be funny little iron kettles with lids, coffee-pot, skillet, pans and plates, cups of tin, and other utensils. Then he loosened several buckets that fit one into the other. These he plunged into the brook to swing out brimming full of water. All his movements were quick, vigorous, yet deft. It was wonderful to watch him ply an axe. Chips and splinters and billets flew as if by magic. He built a roaring fire, explaining that it must burn down to a bed of red coals. Next, like a juggler, he produced washbasin, soap and towel, and thoroughly washed his hands. . . . “Most important of all,” he said with a grin. “Now watch me mix sourdough biscuits.” She did watch the procedure with intense interest. Here was her husband encroaching on the preserves of a housewife. But she was fascinated. He was efficient, he was really wonderful to a tenderfoot girl. To see that brawny-shouldered young man on his knees before a pan of flour and water, to watch his big brown hands skillfully mix the dough was a revelation to Lucinda. With the further preparation of the meal he was equally skillful. She sat down cross-legged, despite the tight breeches, and most heartily enjoyed her first supper in Arizona. She was famished. Logan had forgotten to take her to lunch. Ham and eggs, biscuits and coffee, with canned peaches for dessert, and finally the big box of candy that Logan produced from somewhere, as an especial present on that day—these certainly satisfied more than hunger for Lucinda.

      “Logan, you amaze me. You’re a splendid cook,” she said. “It’s just fine to think I won’t have to cook and bake.”

      “Ha! Ha! No you won’t atall!” he ejaculated, gayly. “But I’m glad you see I can do it. . . . Now we’ll clear up. I’ll wash and you dry.”

      After these chores were finished Logan went into the woods with an axe, to come forth burdened under an immense load of green fragrant boughs. This he threw down beside the wagon. Then he unrolled a canvas to take out blankets.

      “There’s hardly enough room in the wagon for you to sleep, let alone me,” he said. “I’ll make my bed on the ground. If skunks and coyotes, scorpions, tarantulas and sidewinders come around they’ll get me first. Ha! Ha! But really they’re not to be laughed at. I won’t take any risk of you being bitten, especially by a hydrophobia skunk. You’re too dog-gone precious. I’d never find another woman like you.”

      Lucinda said nothing. His words, like his actions, were so natural, so inevitable. Yet he showed fine feeling. She was a bride and this was her wedding-night. Dusk came trooping out of the forest. She heard a sough of wind in the pines, an uneasy breathing melancholy sound. How lonely! She shivered a little. Logan’s observations were keen. He fetched her heavy coat. Then he threw a bundle of the green pine foliage into the wagon, and some blankets, and climbed in the door after them. Lucinda heard him rummaging around at a great rate. Presently he leaped out, his hair rumpled.

      “There! All you got to do is use your coat for a pillow, take off your boots, crawl under the blankets, and you’ll be jake. . . . Well, the day is done. Our first day! . . . Now for a smoke. Lucinda, better stretch your legs a little before we turn in.”

      She walked under the pines, along the brook, out into the open. But she did not go far. The windfalls, the clumps of sage might harbor some of the varmints Logan feared. She looked back to see he had replenished the camp fire. He stood beside it, a tall dark stalwart figure, singularly fitting this unfamiliar scene. There appeared to be something wild and raw, yet thrilling about it. The flames lighted up the exquisite lacy foliage of the pines. Sparks flew upward. The great white wagon loomed like a spectre. Black always depressed Lucinda, but white frightened her. Logan stood there spreading his hands. . . . He was splendid, she thought. She could well transfer the love she had given him as a boy to the grown man, for Logan had matured beyond his years. In repose his face showed fine stern lines. He had suffered pain, hardship, if not grief. Lucinda’s fears of Logan vanished like the columns of smoke blowing away into the darkness. She had vague fears of this West and she divined they would be magnified and multiplied, but never would there be a fear of Logan Huett. Whatever it would cost her she was glad she had answered to his call for a mate, and she would try to make herself a worthy one.

      She returned to the fire and warmed her hands over the blaze. How quickly the air had chilled!

      “I never knew how good fire could feel,” she said, laughing.

      “Ha! You said a lot.” Then he drew her to a seat on the log nearby. He removed his pipe and knocked the ashes from it. “Lucinda, I’m not much of a fellow to talk,” he said, earnestly, with the light from the fire playing on his dark strong face and in his clear gray eyes. “Sure, I’ll talk your head off about cattle and range, bears and cougars, Indians and all that’s wild. But I mean the—the deep things—the things here—” and he tapped his broad breast. “I’ve got them here, only they’re hard to say. . . . Anyway, words would never tell how I appreciate your leaving your people, your friends, and civilized comforts, to come out to this wild Arizona range. To be my wife—my pardner! It’s almost too good to be true. And I love you for it. . . . I reckon I was selfish to make you come to me and rush you at that. But you’ll forgive me when you see our ranch—the work that’s to be done—and winter coming fast. . . . You’re only a young girl, Lucinda. Only eighteen! And I feel shame to think what you must have overcome—before you accepted. But, my dear, don’t fear I’ll rush you into real wifehood, you know, like I did into marriage. All in good time, Lucinda, when you feel you know me as I am now, and love me, and want to come to me. . . . That’s all, little girl. Kiss me goodnight and go to your bed in our prairie-schooner.”

      Lucinda did as she was bidden, relieved and comforted as she had not thought possible except after long trial. She peeped out to see Logan in the flickering firelight. Then she crawled under the warm woolen blankets. How strange! How marvelous to be there! She would not have exchanged that bed, and the canvas roof with its moving weird shadows, for the palace of a princess. But the wind moaned through the pines—moaned of the terrible loneliness, the distance, the wildness of this West.

Chapter Three

      Lucinda awakened sometime in the night, coming out of a dream of a strange pale place, where she wandered down empty echoing streets, fearful lest she should be seen in her boy’s garb. The night was pitch dark and silent as the grave. The crickets, the wind, the brook had all but ceased their sounds. She was cold despite the blankets. She lay there shivering while the black canopy of the canvas changed to gray. Soon she heard sharp weird piercing yelps, wild and haunting.

      Dawn came. The ring of an axe and splitting of wood told her that Logan had begun his work. Lucinda sat up with an impulse to go out and join him. But the keen air made her change her mind. When she heard a fire crackling, however, she threw back the blankets and hunted for her boots. By the time she had the second one laced her fingers were numb. She donned her coat, took her little bag and crawled out.

      Logan was not in sight. Lucinda made for the fire. If it had felt good the night before what did it feel now? She had not known the blessing of heat. While she warmed her hands she gazed about. The grass was gray-white with frost; far across the open Logan appeared astride one of the horses, driving in the oxen. The sky in the east was ruddy, but the all-encompassing wall of pines appeared cold, forbidding. Logan had been thoughtful to put on a bucket of water to heat. Before he arrived at the camp Lucinda had washed her face and hands and combed her hair. This morning she braided it and let it hang.

      “Howdy, settler,” she called to Logan.

      “Well! Hello, red-cheeks! Say, but you’re good to see this morning. . . . How’d you rest?”

      “Slept like a log. Awoke once, after a queer dream. I was in a deserted town wandering about in these pants. What made those barks I heard?”

      “Coyotes. I like to hear them. But wolves make me shiver. I saw the track of a big lofer out there.”

      “Lofer?”

      “That’s local for wolf. Perhaps that track was made by Killer Gray. He’s got a black ruff, Lucinda. I’ll shoot him and cure his hide for a rug. We must live off the land.”