All the time he had been eating just pickles; when he finished his story he ate faster. By now we all knew he was demented. The men tried to coax him to go on with us so that they could turn him over to the authorities, but he said he must be digging. At last it was decided to send some one back for him. Mr. Struble was unwilling to leave him, but the man would not be persuaded. Suddenly he gathered up his “smoking” and some food and ran back up the draw. We had to go on, of course.
All that afternoon our road lay along the buried river. I don’t mean dry river. Sand had blown into the river until the water was buried. Water was only a few feet down, and the banks were clearly defined. Sometimes we came to a small, dirty puddle, but it was so alkaline that nothing could drink it. The story we had heard had saddened us all, and we were sorry for our horses. Poor little Elizabeth Hull wept. She said the West was so big and bare, and she was so alone and so sad, she just had to cry.
About sundown we came to a ranch and were made welcome by one Timothy Hobbs, owner of the place. The dwelling and the stables were a collection of low brown houses, made of logs and daubed with mud. Fields of shocked grain made a very prosperous-looking background. A belled cow led a bunch of sleek cattle home over the sand dunes. A well in the yard afforded plenty of clear, cold water, which was raised by a windmill. The cattle came and drank at the trough, the bell making a pleasant sound in the twilight.
The men told Mr. Hobbs about the man we saw. “Oh, yes,” he said, “that is Crazy Olaf. He has been that way for twenty years. Spends his time digging wells, but he never gets any water, and the sand caves in almost as fast as he can get it out.” Then he launched upon a recital of how he got sweet water by piping past the alkali strata. I kept hoping he would tell how Olaf was kept and who was responsible for him, but he never told.
He invited us to prepare our supper in his kitchen, and as it was late and wood was scarce, we were glad to accept. He bustled about helping us, adding such dainties as fresh milk, butter, and eggs to our menu. He is a rather stout little man, with merry gray eyes and brown hair beginning to gray. He wore a red shirt and blue overalls, and he wiped his butcher’s knife impartially on the legs of his overalls or his towel,—just whichever was handiest as he hurried about cutting our bacon and opening cans for us.
Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and he got on famously. After supper, while she and Elizabeth washed the dishes, she asked him why he didn’t get married and have some one to look after him and his cabin.
“I don’t have time,” he answered. “I came West eighteen years ago to make a start and a home for Jennie and me, but I can’t find time to go back and get her. In the summer I have to hustle to make the hay and grain, and I have to stay and feed the stock all the rest of the time.”
“You write her once in a while, don’t you?” asked Mrs. O’Shaughnessy.
“Yes,” he said, “I wrote her two years ago come April; then I was so busy I didn’t go to town till I went for my year’s supplies. I went to the post office, and sure enough there was a letter for me,—been waitin’ for me for six months. You see the postmaster knows me and never would send a letter back. I set down there right in the office and answered it. I told her how it was, told her I was coming after her soon as I could find time. You see, she refuses to come to me ’cause I am so far from the railroad, and she is afraid of Indians and wild animals.”