The Oxbow Wizard

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

Then the kitchen door opened and Young Dan entered with the tall man close behind him. He threw aside his cap and embraced his mother; and at the first clear glimpse of his face she knew that her Daniel senior had been mistaken again.

They remained at the farm for supper, and the night and breakfast. Dan’l Evans was greatly relieved, of course, to know that his son was not an offender against any law—but he was not happy. Everything was too right for his complete enjoyment. There was too much talk on the deputy-sheriff’s part to suit him, of the virtues of Bill Tangler and the great thing Young Dan had done; and Young Dan, was too well pleased with himself and the deputy-sheriff; and Mrs. Evans made altogether too much of both the visitors and had more to say about the intellectual qualities of her own family than could be expected to please a husband of Dan’l’s disposition. When he knocked and belittled and sneered, he was either ignored entirely or bluntly contradicted. When he advanced the theory that Young Dan had been guilty of an error in judgment in jumping so quick at Luke Watt, and cited the two bullet-holes in the youth’s coat as proof of the mistake, the deputy-sheriff thought that he was joking and laughed heartily.

“You’re a dry humorist, Mr. Evans,” he exclaimed. “The driest I ever met. That’s good—that about the holes in Dan’s coat. You sure do give a new and uncommon slant to a thing.”

This puzzled Dan’l, giving him food for silent thought to last him for the remainder of the evening.

Young Dan and Mr. Wallace set out for the Right Prong country after an early breakfast, on their snow-shoes, with forty-pound packs on their shoulders, leaving the strawberry mare in Dan’l Evans’s charge. It was a windless clear day, and the snow was well settled. Young Dan led the way at his best pace—but he did not have to stop once to let Archie Wallace catch up to him. The fact was, he had to put on an extra spurt every now and then to keep the tails of his snowshoes from being stepped on. That’s the kind of man Archie Wallace was.

They found both old men at the camp in fine spirits and Andy Mace’s rheumatism greatly improved. Andy cooked a masterpiece of a supper; and after supper Archie Wallace told the story of Young Dan’s adventures with Luke Watt in his best style. At the conclusion of the narrative, Pete Sabatis turned the glance of his single eye from the face of Young Dan to that of Andy Mace and slowly nodded his head twice.

“Guess you size ’im up right, Andy,” he said.

Young Dan blushed with pleasure, yet pretended not to have seen or heard this passage of intelligence. To be accepted as an able man by Pete Sabatis and to measure up to the heroic standards of earlier generations, these were triumphs which might well expand the heart and redden the cheek of even an older man than Young Dan.

After breakfast the deputy-sheriff and Young Dan went north to Jim Conley’s cabin, heavy-laden with their contributions toward the support of that worthless fellow’s wife and children. Just before coming into view of the cabin, Mr. Wallace halted and the trapper took to the brush beside the trail. Wallace stood motionless for five minutes, then advanced. Within a second of sighting the little hut of logs he glimpsed the swift flash of a face at the little window. He went forward without haste and knocked on the door. It was opened to him by the woman.

“Good mornin’, m’am,” he said, standing his rifle against the edge of the door and lowering his pack to the threshold. “Here’s some grub for you, with the compliments of Dan Evans.”