He felt sure that Helen would make a perfect wife for a man like himself. Particularly now, as she was used to the life of the valley. And, furthermore, he felt that a wife such as she would be essential to him, since he had definitely come to live as a rancher.
She certainly would be an ideal rancher’s wife. He could picture her quite well mounted upon a high-spirited prairie-bred horse, riding over the plains, or round the fences, since that seemed necessary, at his side. He would listen to her merry chatter as he inspected the work that was going forward, while she, simply bubbling with the joy of living, looked on with a perfect sense of humor for those things which her more sober-minded sister would have regarded as matters only for serious consideration.
Thus he went on dreaming, his eyes fixed upon the distant, lamp-lit window, all utterly regardless of the fall of night, and the passing of the hours. Nor was it until he suddenly awoke to the chill of the falling dew that he remembered that he was on his way home to tell Charlie of all his pleasant adventures.
Stirring with that swift impulse which always seemed to actuate him, he rose from his seat on the log and stumbled across the clearing, floundering among the fallen logs with a desperate energy that cost him many more bruises than were necessary, even in the profound darkness of the, as yet, moonless night.
Finally, however, he reached the track which led up to the house and hurried on.
A few minutes later he was wandering through the house searching in the darkened rooms for his brother. It was characteristic of him that he did not confine his search to the house, but sought the missing man in every unlikely spot his vigorous and errant imagination could suggest. He visited the corrals, he visited the barn, he visited the hog pens and the chicken roosts. Then he brought up to a final halt upon the veranda and sought to solve the problem by thought.
There was, of course, an obvious solution which did not occur to him. He might reasonably have sought his bed, and waited until morning—since Charlie had survived five years of life in the valley. That was not his way, however. Instead, a great inspiration came to him. It was an inspiration which he viewed with profound admiration. Of course, he ought to have gone at once to the village, as he had intended, and have visited O’Brien’s saloon.
Forthwith he once more set out, and this time, his purpose being really definite, after much unnecessary wandering he finally achieved it.
He reached the saloon as O’Brien was in the act of turning out the two swing lamps. Already one of them was turned low, and the saloonkeeper, with distended cheeks, was in the act of putting an end to its flickering life when Bill flung open the door.
O’Brien turned abruptly. He turned with that air which is never far from his class, living on the fringe of civilization. His whole look, his attitude, was a truculent demand, and had it found its equivalent in words he would have asked sharply: “What in hell d’you want here?”