The night was magnificent. From horizon to horizon the sky was sown with quivering points of light. Each straggling clump of sage-brush, rocky ledge, and bowlder borrowed a beauty not its own from the yellow radiance of the stars.
They had gone a good two miles before Mary’s patroness broke the silence with, “Nothing plumb stampedes my temper like that Rodney outfit—old Sally buckin’ an’ pitchin’ in her rockin’-chair same as if she was breakin’ a bronco, an’ that Eudory always corallin’, deceivin’, and jiltin’ one outfit of men after another. If she was a daughter of mine, I’d medjure her length across my knee, full growed and courted though she is. The only one of the outfit that’s wuth while is Judith, an’ she ain’t old woman Rodney’s girl, neither. You hyeard that already, did you? Well, this yere country may be lackin’ in population, but it’s handy as a sewin’-circle in distributin’ news.”
Mary mentioned Leander. “Yes,” answered Mrs. Yellett, reflectively, “Leander’s mouth do run about eight and a half octaves. Sometimes I don’t blame his wife for bangin’ down the lid.”
They talked of Jim Rodney’s troubles, and the growing hatred between sheep and cattle men, because of range rights.
“Now that pore Jim had a heap of good citizen in him, before that pestiferous cattle outfit druv’ his sheep over the cliff. Relations ’twixt sheep and cattle men in this yere country is strained beyant the goin’-back place, I can tell you. My pistol-eye ’ain’t had a wink of sleep for nigh on eighteen months, an’ is broke to wakefulness same as a teethin’ babe.
“Jim was wild as a coyote ’fore he marries that girl. She come all the way from Topeka, Kansas, thinking she was goin’ to find a respectable home, and when she come out hyear and found the place was a dance-hall, she cried all the time. She didn’t add none to the hilarity of the place. An’ one day Jim he strolled in, an’ seem’ the girl a-cryin’ like a freshet and wishin’ she was dead, he inquired the cause. She told him how that old harpy wrote her, an’, bein’ an orphant, she come out thinkin’ she was goin’ to a respectable place as waitress, an’ Jim he ’lowed it was a case for the law. He was a little shy of twenty at the time, just a young cockerel ’bout br’ilin’ size. Some of the old hangers-on ’bout the place they see a heap of fun in Jim’s takin’ on ’bout the girl, he bein’ that young that he had scarce growed a pair of spurs yet. An’ one of ’em says to him,’ Sonny, if you’re afeerd that this yere corral is onjurious to the young lady’s morals, we’ll call in the gospel sharp, if you’ll stand for the brand.’ Now Jim hadn’t a cent, nor no callin’, nor a prospect to his back, but he struts up to the man that was doin’ the talkin’, game as a bantam, an’ he says, ‘The lady ain’t rakin’ in anythin’ but a lettle white chip, in takin’ me, but if she’s willin’, here’s my hand.’
“At which that pore young thing cried harder than ever. Well, Jim he up an’ marries the girl an’ it turns out fine. He gets a job herdin’ sheep on shares, an’ she stays with the Rodney outfit till he saves enough to build a cabin. Things is goin’ with Jim like a prairie afire. In a few years he acquires a herd of his own, a fine herd, not a scabby sheep in the bunch. Alida she makes him the best kind of a wife, them kids is the pride of his life, and then, them cursed cattle-men do for him. Of course, he takes to rustlin’; I’d do more’n rustle if they’d touch mine.”
The pair of broncos that Mrs. Yellett was driving humped their backs like cats as they climbed the steep mountain-road. With her, driving was an exact science. It was a treat to see her handle the ribbons. Mary asked some trifling question about the children and it elicited the information that one of the girls was named Cacta. “Yes,” she said, “I like new names for children, not old ones that is all frazzled out and folks has suffered an’ died to. It seems to start ’em fair, like playin’ cards with a new deck. Cacta’s my oldest daughter, and I named her after the flowers that blooms all over the desert spite of everything, heat, cold, an’ rain an’ alkali dust—the cactus blooms right through it all. Even its own thorns don’t seem to fret it none. I called her plain Cactus till she was three, and along came a sharp studyin’ the flowers an’ weeds out here, and he ’lowed that Cactus was a boy’s name an’ Cacta was for girls—called it a feeminin tarnation, or somethin’ like that, so we changed it. My second daughter ’ain’t got quite so much of a name. She’s called Clematis. That holds its own out here pretty well, ’long by the willows on the creek. Paw ’lowed he was terrible afraid that I’d name the youngest girl Sage-brush, so he spoke to call her Lessie Viola, an’ I giv’ in. The boys is all plain named, Ben, Jack, and Ned. Paw wouldn’t hear of a fancy brand bein’ run onto ’em.”
The temperature fell perceptibly as they climbed the heights, and the air had the heady quality of wine. It was awesome, this entering into the great company of the mountains. Presently Mary caught the glimmer of something white against the dark background of the hills. It gleamed like a snow-bank, though they were far below the snow-line on the mountain-side they were climbing.
“Well, here be camp,” announced Mrs. Yellett. What Mary had taken for a bank of snow was a huge, canvas-covered wagon. Several dogs ran down to greet the buckboard, barking a welcome. In the background was a shadowy group, huge of stature, making its way down the mountain-path. “And here’s all the children come to meet teacher.” Mrs. Yellett’s tone was tenderly maternal, as if it was something of a feat for the children to walk down the mountain-path to meet their teacher. But Mary, straining her eyes to catch a glimpse of her little pupils, could discover nothing but a group of persons that seemed to be the sole survivors of some titanic race. Not one among them but seemed to have reached the high-water mark of six feet. Was it an optical illusion, a hallucination born of the wonderful starlight? Or were they as huge as they seemed? The young men looked giants, the girls as if they had wandered out of the first chapters of Genesis. Their mother introduced them. They all had huge, warm, perspiring hands, with grips like bears. Mary looked about for a house into which she could escape to gather her scattered faculties, but the starlight, yellow and luminous, revealed none. There was the huge covered wagon that she had taken for a snow-bank, there was a small tent, there were two light wagons, there were dogs innumerable, but there was no sign of a house.