Harry paused, his arms full of wood with which he was replenishing the fire, and stared in amazement, as Larry unrolled a mass of changeable satin wherein a deep cerise and green coloring shifted and shimmered in the firelight. He held the rich material up to his own waist and looked gravely down on the long folds that dropped to the floor and coiled about his feet. “I told you we’re to live like lords and ladies now. Man! I’d like to see Amalia in a gown of this!”
Harry dropped his wood on the fire and threw back his head and laughed. He even lay down on the floor to laugh, and rolled about until his head lay among the folds of satin. Then he sat up, and taking the material between his fingers 303 felt of it, while the big man looked down on him, gravely discomfited.
“And what did you bring for Madam Manovska?”
“Black, man, black. I’m no fool, I tell you. I know what’s discreet for an elderly lady.” Then they gravely and laboriously folded together the yards of gorgeous satin. “And I’d have been glad of your measure to get you the suit of clothes you’re needing. Lacking it, I got one for myself. But for me they’re a bit too small. You’ll maybe turn tailor and cut them still smaller for yourself. Take them, and if they’re no fit, you’ll laugh out of the other corner of your mouth.” The two men stood a moment sheepishly eying each other, while Harry held the clothes awkwardly in his hands.
“I––I––did need them.” He choked a bit, and then laughed again.
“So did I need them––yours and mine, too.” Larry held up another suit, “See here. Mine are darker, to keep you from thinking them yours. And here are the buckskins for hunting. I used to make them for myself, but they had these for sale, and I was by way of spending money, so I bought them. Now, with the blouses the women have made for you, we’re decent.”
All at once it dawned on Harry what a journey the big man had made, and he fairly shouted, “Larry Kildene, where have you been?”
“I rode like the very devil for three days. When once I was started, I was crazed to go––and see––Then I reached the end of the road from the coast this way. Did you know they’re building the road from both ways at once? I didn’t, for I never went down to get news of the 304 cities, and they might have put the whole thing through without my even knowing of it, if you hadn’t tumbled in on me and told me of it.
“It stirred me up a bit. I left my horse in charge of one I thought I might trust, and then took a train and rode over the new rails clean through to San Francisco, and there I groveled around a day or two, taking in the ways of men. They’re doing big things. Now that the two oceans are to be united by iron rails, great changes will come like the wind,––the Lord knows when they will end! Now, the women will be wanting us to eat, I’m thinking, and I’m not ready––but eat we must when the hour comes, and we’ve done nothing this whole morning but stand here and talk.”
Thus Larry grumbled as they tramped down to the cabin through the snow, with the rolls of silk under his arm, and the silver plates in his hand, while Harry carried the sack of coffee and the paper for Amalia. As they neared the cabin the big man paused.