BISMARCK ANNE ARRIVES
As has been hinted, the outward and visible signs of prosperity had to some extent increased the feminine population of Copper Creek. Molly Lafond had long since lost the distinction of being the only woman in camp. Some of the newcomers were blessed with wives, one or two were favored with daughters. All told, there were perhaps fifteen or twenty of the gentler sex scattered among the new and old log cabins of the valley.
But from them Molly had little to fear in the way of rivalry. The older women were either buxom and decisive, representing the sturdier pioneer race, or dyspeptic and drawling, as typical of the effects of a high altitude on nervous and underfed organizations. The young girls were angular, awkward and shy, especially so when in the presence of Miss Molly's breezy self-possession. They would all make good "filling" at the new dance-house ball, but they would never obtrude into the foreground.
Then Bismarck Anne came to camp. She conceived the idea quite suddenly, late one afternoon, and without so much as a word to anybody she strapped her most becoming ball-gown inside a poncho and rode across from Spanish Gulch on her little pinto pony.
Bismarck Anne was at that time in the heyday of her youth and prosperity. She was of the dark-skinned, black-haired, black-eyed type, so "common" when it falls just short of attractiveness, but so abundantly vital when, as in the present case, it does not fall short. Bismarck Anne was instinct, charged with life. Into everything she did she threw a verve and abandon that carried the adventure well through with something to spare. And she was afraid of nothing. She denied the possibility of nothing.
About three o'clock of the afternoon she galloped in. A number of men recognized her and ran to help her down from her horse. Everybody knew her by sight or reputation, but few had ever dared attempt her acquaintance, for ordinarily Bismarck Anne chose her coterie from the powerful and wealthy. Now, however, there seemed to be little cause for anxiety on that point. Bismarck Anne had come over for a good time and she was going to have it. If the men who surrounded her on her arrival felt any momentary restraint or trepidation, they were almost immediately set at ease by the warmth of her manner.
It was Old Mizzou, I believe, who steadied her stirrup, and Dave Kelly who helped her from her horse and held her a moment longer than was necessary, and, to his vast astonishment, instead of being slapped was heartily kissed for his temerity. There was a breathless element of unexpectedness in this which appealed to the miners' sense of humor, and they all laughed consumedly and felt good comrades at once. Old Mizzou mentally added another exception to his sweeping rule about "grass widders and school ma'ams." There sprang up a rapid fire of good-humored joking back and forth in which no man was favored, where each had a chance to enter the lists, and in the course of which each conceived an inner conviction that all he needed to "win out" was a chance unhindered by the crowd. Bismarck Anne stood in the centre of the group, flashing her black eyes back and forth from one to the other and showing her white teeth in a series of dazzling smiles.
Just at this moment Cheyenne Harry and Molly Lafond, returning from one of their numerous expeditions, caught sight of the animated group near the hotel, and naturally turned aside to investigate its cause.
Bismarck Anne faced toward them.
"Why, Harry!" she cried, holding out both hands, "you here? I didn't know you-all hung out in this camp. You look just the same as ever. 'Spose you're goin' to take in th' dance to-night. Yes, that's what I came over for; that an' nothing else. We'll have to stir this camp up a bit and make her seem like old times. I'm afraid you boys have been getting a little slow," she flashed good-humoredly at the others. "Harry, you ought to have seen them when I kissed that boy over there, just for a 'kid,' you know. I don't believe you've got a girl in this camp who knows beans, and it's about time you did. I'm mighty glad to see you. But you got to watch out, though! This is a pretty good-looking lot of boys, and you'll have to hustle to hold your job." She said this still holding both his hands in hers, and alternately smiling now at him, now at the men about her. She had taken rapid stock of Molly—whom she now ignored for the moment—and had as rapidly come to the conclusion that if a rival were to appear at all, it would be Harry's companion. She hoped her speech would at the same time attach Harry to herself, and render assiduous his devotions by a fear of rivalry.
"You bet we will!" cried Harry. His manner was enthusiastic, not so much with joy over seeing Bismarck Anne, as with instinctive relief from the tension of his rather sentimental interview with Molly. He remembered the latter and performed some sort of an introduction.
The two women looked each other in the eye.
"How do you do?" asked Molly coolly, without moving an inch.
"Very well, my dear," replied Bismarck Anne smiling, "and very glad to get here."
The endearing epithet relegated Molly at once to the category of little girls.
The conversation continued for some moments longer, the men standing as silent spectators. Molly continued very reserved. The newcomer did not appear to notice it, but chattered on unconcernedly in a light-hearted fashion, appealing to the other just often enough to convey the idea that there was nothing noticeably repellent in her manner. In fact she did it so well that the group gained the impression that Molly carried her share of the small talk, which was not true. But in spite of the apparent good-feeling Cheyenne Harry felt uncomfortably that something was wrong. Searching about for the cause, he at last discovered it in Molly's attitude.
So on the way to the cabin he was vexed, and showed it. And Molly felt so strongly the innate justice of her position and appreciated so keenly the skill with which she had been made to appear sulky and unreasonable, that when she had finally shut her own door behind her, she threw herself on her bed and cried as though her heart would break. Then her blood told. She dried her eyes and in her inmost heart she declared war against this woman, war to the knife and to the uttermost. The momentary defeat dashed her at first, then it nerved her. After all nothing definite had occurred. This creature had planted several stinging thrusts which had hit home because Molly, in the innocence of her heart, was not expecting them. She was on her guard now. It would not happen again. Cheyenne Harry had known the woman before, evidently, and surely it was natural that in the first surprise of seeing her so unexpectedly, he should display a certain enthusiasm of recognition. But his relations with her—Molly Lafond—were too intimate, too long-continued, to be lightly broken.
As the twilight fell she saw, through the oblong of her sliding window, that men were hurrying by to dine early, in order that they might prepare for the festivities of the evening. Across the square she could make out the dim shape of the new dance hall, a long low structure trimmed with evergreens and bunting. Frosty was even then lighting the lamps in the Little Nugget. She sat there motionless, staring out into the night, fingering the soft white stuff of the gown lying across her lap, until a certain peace came to her and a conviction that all would be well.
The night was warm and balmy with the odors of early spring. Molly had slid back the halves of her narrow window, and over the boxes of flowers that fringed this little artificial horizon the mellow notes of the first whitethroat, that nightingale of the north, floated in on the tepid air. Beyond the nearer silhouette of the flowers another dimmer silhouette of the hills wavered uncertainly beneath a few uncertain stars. The girl watched these stars idly, dreaming in tune with the plaintive notes of the bird. Then silently another bulkier silhouette interposed itself, almost filling the window.
"What is it?" she cried, starting.
"It's I," came the voice of Jack Graham. The silhouette rested two black-outlined elbows against the sill.
"My, how you frightened me!" she cried pettishly. "What in the world do you want? Why aren't you at dinner?"
"Molly," said Graham solemnly, "I don't suppose you'll listen to me. We haven't gotten along very well lately, have we? But I want you to know that I am asking this for your sake, and that I believe it."
She was impressed by the sincere quality of his tone. "Why, Jack," she said softly, "I know you mean well, and I suppose I am very frivolous and careless. What is it?"
"I wish you would not go to the dance to-night."
There fell a pause. She was evidently in a softened mood and she wished to conduct the interview considerately. "But, Jack," she hesitatingly asked at last. "Do you think there is going to be trouble?"
"It will only give you pain. You are going to be forced against things you have never had to combat before."
"I don't understand you."
"I am going to talk very plainly, Molly; I hope you won't get angry. I can't help it if you do. It's because I love you so, girl; I love you so!"
His voice was deep and rich with emotion, so poignant and compelling that it forced her attention in spite of herself. This was a declaration, she dimly felt, and yet its import as such was somehow lost in the more pregnant subject-matter to which it but added emphasis.
"Go on," she said breathlessly.
"You are well liked by everybody here," he continued, carefully avoiding more pointed personalities, "and you have grown so used to being liked by everybody that it would hurt you cruelly if you were not. Isn't that true?"
"Yes," assented Molly gravely, after a moment's consideration.
"You want to hold first place in their thoughts and in their goodwill. You want to be first with them and you want them to show to you and to each other by their actions that they are your best friends and are going to stand by you. Do I read you right?"
"Yes, of course I want all the boys to like me. I've known them so long, and I should feel dreadfully if they didn't. But what do you mean by it? I don't understand."
The silhouette moved uneasily. "Now don't get angry," he pleaded. "Take to-night. To speak plainly, you want to be the woman who receives the most attention at that ball. Answer frankly."
"Well," confessed the gill after another moment's hesitation, "frankly then, I do."
"You will not."
"Why?"
"Because the woman who came this afternoon, Bismarck Anne, will take your place."
Molly Lafond would have become angry if her experience of the afternoon had not already made her uneasy on just this point.
"Do you consider her more attractive than me?" she asked a little resentfully.
"A thousand times No!" assured the silhouette.
"Has she known the boys as long as I? Is she as good friends with them? Can she talk better? Is she brighter?"
"No."
"Then I don't believe I quite see."
"It's just this. The men all like you and admire you, and would do anything for you, but at the same time they look up to you a little. You are better than they are, so, more or less, they are a little—well—a little restricted with you. This woman is their sort. She isn't a bit better than they are. When they are out to have a good time, like at the dance to-night, they want somebody they can have their sort of fun with. You are too good for them."
"That is very theoretical."
"It is very true."
"And supposing, just supposing, it were. You want me to lie down and quit without making a fight. Do you call that being game? What would you think of a man who would run away because the other man was a little stronger? Don't you think I'd fight?"
"That's just it. You'd fight too well."
"I don't——"
"She has ways of drawing men to her which you know nothing about. They are her weapons. I know you'd fight. You'd fight to the last because it is in you to, and I'm afraid, very much afraid, that when you found your weapons were not enough you'd use hers."
There fell between them a long silence, while Molly slowly pondered these last words and gradually apprehended their meaning. In the darkness she could feel the blood tingeing her face, forehead, and neck. At first she was inclined to be angry and to show it, but the man's evident sincerity, coupled with the fervor of his incidental declaration of love, softened her.
"I don't believe I ever had anybody tell me such things before," she could not restrain herself from saying, "and I don't know whether I ought to thank you for your lack of trust in me. However, you'll be there, and I can rely on your protection against these awful dangers."
"I will not be there," contradicted Graham bluntly.
"Well, then, there's Harry." She said the name out of bravado to show that there was no reason why she should not say it.
"Yes," cried Graham, with a burst of anger that astonished her. "It is he I mean."
It was the red flag to them both, the idea of this man. "I think you'd better go now," she replied coldly.
Graham turned away with a little curse.
She sat down again and tried desperately to regain her confidence of a few moments before, but it would not come. She was angry and insulted, and she was vexed at herself that she could not throw off the uneasiness which lay behind these emotions; but she could not. It grew on her as her nervousness increased. She sat staring straight before her into the dark, clasping and unclasping her hands, and striving with all the earnestness of which she was capable to seize and formulate the vague fear that seemed unreasonably to weigh on her spirits. Analyze it as she would, she could find no adequate reason for it. It was therefore the more terrible. The dinner hour passed quite unnoticed. The nervousness increased until she could have shrieked aloud. And then with a sudden start she recognized it—this old formless causeless sense of an indefinite guilt, as for something left undone; the voice, although this she did not know, of her inherited New England conscience.
At the discovery she rebelled. She had always rebelled, and heretofore she had succeeded in putting it down, in stifling it underneath mere surface moods. But now the surface moods proved inadequate. The uneasy guiltiness increased until it almost overflowed in tears. Molly was afraid, just as a child is afraid of the dark.
She lit the lamps and looked at herself in the mirror. This must not go on. To-night, the one night when she needed all her powers, it was foolish to allow a whim to weaken them. She shook her head at herself and smiled. The smile was not a success. She turned away wearily and thrust her hands through her hair. Why had Graham taken it into his head to bother her this one evening of all others? It was his fault. She stamped her foot angrily. All his fault. In spite of his denial, she believed he would be there and would set everything. The thought stung her pride and the desire for tears left her. She would show him just how much his advice and his fears were worth. On the impulse she spread her white dress out on the bed, and began hastily to smooth out the wrinkles in its pleats. After a moment she turned decisively to the mirror, and began to take down her hair.