IV.
It all came to an end one afternoon. Brice was at work on the ditch again, preferring the cheerful companionship of Joel and Bert Fox to his own thoughts, and Mrs. Brandt was alone in her kitchen. Two shadows fell across the worn threshold, and a weak, questioning voice brought the good woman to her door instantly.
"Good-day to you, ma'am. Is there a man named Brice livin' nigh here anywhere?"
It was a woman's voice,—a woman with some bits of tawdry ornament about her, and a round-eyed boy clinging bashfully to her skirts.
Mrs. Brandt brought them into the house, urging the stranger to rest a bit and get her breath.
"Thank you, ma'am; I'd like to be movin' on. Do you know if he's well,—the man Brice? We're his wife an' boy."
The woman told her story presently, when Mrs. Brandt had induced her to wait there until the men came home,—told it with no unnecessary words, and her listener made no comment.
"My brother come a week afore we was leavin', an' he helped us off an' come as fur as Omaha. He'd done well out in Nebrasky, an' he give me right smart o' money when he left. I was took sick on the road,—I disremember jest where,—an' they left me at a town with a woman named Dixon. She took care o' me. I was out o' my head a long time, an' when I come to I told 'em to write to Brice, an' they writ, an' I reckon they took the name of the place from the ticket. I was weak like fer a long spell, an' they kep' a writin' an' no word come, an' then I recollected about the town,—it was Los Angeles on the ticket,—and then I couldn't think of the place I'd sent the letters to before, an' the thinkin' worrited me, an' the doctor said I mustn't try. So I jest waited, an' when I got to Los Angeles I kep' a-askin' fer a man named Brandt, till one day somebody said, 'Brandt? Brandt? 'pears to me there's a Brandt 'way over beyond the Mission.' And then it come to me all at oncet that the place I'd writ to was San Gabriel Mission. An' I went there an' they showed me your house. Then a man give us a lift on his team part o' the way, an' we walked the rest. It didn't look very fur, but they say mountains is deceivin'. There 's somethin' kind o' grand about 'em, I reckon; it makes everything 'pear sort o' small."
Mrs. Brandt told Joel about it that evening.
"I just took the two of 'em up to the shanty, and opened the door, and you'd a cried to see how pleased she was with everything. And I told her to kindle a fire and I'd fetch up a bite o' supper. And when I'd carried it up and left it, I just come back and stood on the step till I saw Brice comin' home. He was walkin' slow, as if his feet was a dead weight, and when he took hold o' the door he stopped a minute, lookin' over the valley kind o' wishful and hopeless. I guess she heard him come, for she opened the door, and I turned around and come in. 'Barbara Brandt,' says I, 'you've seen your see. If God wants to look at that, I suppose He has a right to; nobody else has, that's certain.'"