"They ain't goin' to understand that," said he. "They can't think the way we do. Oh, why didn't that old fool Godfrey call their attention the other way? Oh, that'll set fine, won't it, with a man comin' to buy a coal mine, and a girl with a pot of white vaseline on her face and a consumin' vision of tarantulas in her soul! This'll be another case of New Jersey Gold Mill. Old Mr. Eastern Capital, why, he'll run out at the same door wherein he went; that's what he'll do. And, oh, doctors and saints, look at that, now!" Bill Godfrey was leaning out of the coach-box and pointing with his whip. "He's showin' them the town now," said Dan Anderson. "Why—I hadn't thought before but what this place was all right."
I looked anxiously about, sharing his consternation. It had been our world for these years, a world set apart, distant and unknown; but it had been satisfactory until now. Never before that moment had the scattering little one-story cabins of log and adobe seemed so small and insignificant, so unfit for human occupancy. We were suddenly ashamed.
Dan Anderson, awaiting his fate, did not fly, but sat gravely on the log in front of Uncle Jim's hotel, and waited for the creaking, stage, white with far-gathered dust, to climb the last pitch of the road up from the arroyo and come on with the shambling trot of a pair of tired mules for the final nourish at the end of the long, dry trail.
He waited, and as the stagecoach, stopped, arose and walked steadily forward. Another man might have smiled and stammered and nervously have offered assistance to the newcomers; but Dan Anderson was master of his faculties.
The curtains still concealed the tenant of the farther side of the rear seat, when there appeared the passenger nearest to our side of the coach,—a citizen of the eminently respectable sort, forty inches in girth, and of gray chin whiskers and mustache. He was well shod and well clad; so much could be seen as he climbed down between the wheels and stood stamping his feet to shake the travel cramp out of his legs. He looked thirsty and unhappy and bored. A flush of recognition crossed his face when he saw the tall figure approaching him.
"Well, Andersen," Mr. Ellsworth said, extending a hand, "how are you? Got here at last—awful drive. Where do we stop? You know my daughter, of course."
What treachery to Heart's Desire was here! Dan Anderson, a man who had come to stay, shaking hands on terms of old acquaintanceship, apparently, with Eastern Capital itself; and not content with that, advancing easily and courteously, hat in hand, to greet the daughter of Eastern Capital as though it were but yesterday that last they met. Moreover, and bitterest of all for a loyal man of Heart's Desire, was there not a glance, a word between them? Did Dan Anderson whisper a word and did she flush faint and rosy? or was it a touch of the light? Certain it was he reached up his hand to take hers, shaking it not too long nor too fervently.
"I do remember Miss Ellsworth very well, of course, Mr. Ellsworth," said he. "We are all very glad to see you."
"And we're very glad to see you!" echoed the girl. "Oh! the dust, the dust!" She spoke in a full, sweet voice, excellent even for outlanders to hear. If there were agitation in her tones, agitation in Dan Andersen's heart, none might know it. This meeting, five years and two thousand miles from a parting, seemed the most natural and ordinary thing in all the world. Mr. Ellsworth was of the belief that he himself had planned it so far as himself and Dan Anderson were concerned.
"My daughter was on her way out to California, you see," Ellsworth began again; "down at El Paso she took a sudden freak for coming up here to see about the climate—lots of folks go West nowadays, you know, even in the spring. I'll warrant she's sick of the trip by now. A good climate has to have dust to season it. One of the mules went lame—thought we would never get here. And now tell me, where'll she stop?" The personification of Eastern Capital looked about him dubiously at the only hotel of Heart's Desire, before which the coach had pulled up as a matter of course. "Any women folks in town, anywhere?" he inquired, bringing his roving eye to rest upon Dan Andersen's impassive face.