“Now, gentlemen!” said Mr. Bunter, the station-keeper, “I think we can take a bite o’ dinner.”
The worthy landlady, Mrs. Bunter, furnished a notable instance of the susceptibility and indifference to externals of the lovers of the plains. She was known, I was informed, as the “widow,” though her husband, a tall, broad-chested, intelligent-looking man of about thirty-three or thirty-four, was “alive,” and probably capable of a good deal of vigorous “kicking.” The sobriquet had clung to the lady from her very general appearance in the character indicated by it. Her present husband was the fourth or fifth occupant of the position. Notwithstanding the number of her husbands, her terms of wedded bliss were very brief. Widowhood was the rule, connubial felicity the exception. Hence was it that, though married, she was still universally spoken of as “the widow,” and some not very intimate acquaintances already knew her as the Widow Bunter. The stalwart husband did not appear to see any unpleasant significance in the title given his fair spouse. He was jovial, and seemed contented.
“The widow” did the service of the table, and very well served and supplied it was. A good antelope stew, with cabbage and potatoes (luxuries in the then uncultivated world of the plains), good bread and butter, pies, and an excellent cup of tea, made us all feel, as our driver expressed it, “mighty good.” Mrs. Bunter evidently made pretensions to personal attractiveness. She was a woman of thirty—perhaps past that proverbially captivating age—very tall, lank, concave-chested, with great projecting teeth and bony, clawlike fingers. Her long, thin visage was thickly coated with rice powder (or flour), which stood out in bold ridges on her high cheek-bones, while pools of rouge shone in the cavities of her hollow cheeks. She had a clear, cold, steady eye, however, which showed that, if she was devoid of heart, as was commonly supposed, she was not without a will of her own. In her time, she had created quite a flutter among the gentlemen of the stage-driving and stock-tending professions. The dread of relicts which embittered the maturer years of the elder Weller had no place in the bold bosoms of the “whips” of the desert. More than one man (not including her four dear departed) had died “for her sake.” The shooting of one suitor only had the effect which hanging a British admiral formerly was supposed to have—that of “encouraging the others.”
Swift and ample justice was done to the “squarest meal,” as the driver termed it, we had upon the road. A very few minutes sufficed us to make a hearty dinner, and we were seated in the porch, pipes were being filled and lighted, preparatory to a discussion of the various incidents of the fight, when the wounded pony we had seen upon the road limped into the station. His master had not been dead more than a few hours, but he was completely forgotten until the arrival of his wounded horse brought him to mind again. So ordinary an event was the killing of a man by Indians, at that time, on the Misty Mountain.
“Where’s Mac?” asked the driver.
“In yonder,” answered our host, nodding toward the granary.
“Hurt?”
“Killed.”
“How?”