Sagebrusher

Emerson Hough

Description

In this novel from renowned writer of Westerns Emerson Hough, an unlikely romance springs up between a Montana rancher and a well-meaning young woman from the East when friends of the rancher place an ad in the era's newspaper equivalent of a dating website. The match is made, but it turns out to be a poor fit for everyone involved.

Sujets

• Westerns
• Western (genre)
• Western

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776673292
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE SAGEBRUSHER
A STORY OF THE WEST
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EMERSON HOUGH
 
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The Sagebrusher A Story of the West First published in 1919 Epub ISBN 978-1-77667-329-2 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77667-330-8 © 2015 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Chapter I - Sim Gage at Home Chapter II - Wanted: A Wife Chapter III - Fifty-Fifty Chapter IV - Hearts Aflame Chapter V - Beggar Man—Thief Chapter VI - Rich Man—Poor Man Chapter VII - Chivalrous; and of Abundant Means Chapter VIII - Rival Consciences Chapter IX - The Halt and the Blind Chapter X - Neighbors Chapter XI - The Company Doctor Chapter XII - Left Alone Chapter XIII - The Sabcat Camp Chapter XIV - The Man Trail Chapter XV - The Species Chapter XVI - The Rebirth of Sim Gage Chapter XVII - Sagebrushers Chapter XVIII - Donna Quixote Chapter XIX - The Pledge Chapter XX - Major Allen Barnes, M.D., Ph.D.—And Sim Gage Chapter XXI - With this Ring Chapter XXII - Mrs. Gage Chapter XXIII - The Outlook Chapter XXIV - Annie Moves In Chapter XXV - Another Man's Wife Chapter XXVI - The Ways of Mr. Gardner Chapter XXVII - Dorenwald, Chief Chapter XXVIII - A Change of Base Chapter XXIX - Martial Law Chapter XXX - Before Dawn Chapter XXXI - The Blind See Chapter XXXII - The Enemy Chapter XXXIII - The Dam Chapter XXXIV - After the Deluge Chapter XXXV - Annie Answers Chapter XXXVI - Mrs. Davidson's Conscience Endnotes
Chapter I - Sim Gage at Home
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"Sim," said Wid Gardner, as he cast a frowning glance around him, "takeit one way with another, and I expect this is a leetle the dirtiestplace in the Two-Forks Valley."
The man accosted did no more than turn a mild blue eye toward thespeaker and resume his whittling. He smiled faintly, with a sort ofapology, as the other went on.
"I'll say more'n that, Sim. It's the blamedest, dirtiest hole in thewhole state of Montany—yes, or in the whole wide world. Lookit!"
He swept a hand around, indicating the interior of the single-room logcabin in which they sat.
"Well," commented Sim Gage after a time, taking a meditative but whollyunagitated tobacco shot at the cook stove, "I ain't saying she is and Iain't saying she ain't. But I never did say I was a perfessionalhousekeeper, did I now?"
"Well, some folks has more sense of what's right, anyways," grumbledWid Gardner, shifting his position on one of the two insecure crackerboxes which made the only chairs, and resting an elbow on the oil clothtable cover, where stood a few broken dishes, showing no signs of anyablution in all their hopeless lives. "My own self, I'm a bachelorman, too—been batching for twenty years, one place and another—but byGod! Sim, this here is the human limit. Look at that bed."
He kicked a foot toward a heap of dirty fabrics which lay upon thefloor, a bed which might once have been devised for a man, but longsince had fallen below that rank. It had a breadth of dirty canvasthrown across it, from under which the occupant had crawled out.Beneath might be seen the edges of two or three worn and dirty cottonquilts and a pair of blankets of like dinginess. Below this lay a wornelk hide, and under all a lower-breadth of the over-lapping canvas. Itwas such a bed as primarily a cow-puncher might have had, but falleninto such condition that no cow camp would have tolerated it.
Sim Gage looked at the heap of bedding for a time gravely andcarefully, as though trying to find some reason for his friend'sdissatisfaction. His mouth began to work as it always did when he wasengaged in some severe mental problem, but he frowned apologeticallyonce more as he spoke.
"Well, Wid, I know, I know. It ain't maybe just the thing to sleep onthe floor all the time, noways. You see, I got a bunk frame made forher over there, and it's all tight and strong—it was there when I tookthis cabin over from the Swede. But I ain't never just got around tomoving my bed offen the floor onto the bedstead. I may do it some day.Fact is, I was just a-going to do it anyways."
"Just a-going to—like hell you was! You been a-going to move that bedfor four years, to my certain knowledge, and I know that in that timeyou ain't shuk it out or aired it onct, or made it up."
"How do you know I ain't made her up?" demanded Sim Gage, his knifearrested in its labors.
"Well, I know you ain't. It's just the way you've throwed it ever'morning since I've knowed you here. Move it up on the bedstead?—Firstthing you know you can't."
"Well," said Sim, sighing, "some folks is always making other folksfeel bad. I ain't never found fault with the way you keep house when Icome over to your place, have I?"
"You ain't got the same reason for to," replied Wid Gardner. "I ain'tno angel, but I sure try to make some sort of bluff like I was human.This place ain't human."
"Now you said something!" remarked Sim suddenly, after a time spent insolemn thought. "She ain't human! That's right."
He made no explanation for some time, and both men sat looking vaguelyout of the open door across the wide and pleasant valley above which ablue and white-flecked sky bent amiably. A wide ridge of good grasslands lay held in the river's bent arm. The wind blew steadily,throwing up into a sheet of silver the leaves of the willows whichfollowed the water courses. A few quaking asps standing near the cabindoor likewise gave motion and brightness to the scene. The air wasbrilliantly cool and keen. It was a pleasant spot, and at that seasonof the year not an uncomfortable one. Sim Gage had lived here for someyears now, and his homestead, originally selected with the unconscioussense for beauty so often exercised by rude men in rude lands, wasconsidered one of the best in the Two-Forks Valley.
"Feller, he loses hope after a while," began the owner of the placeafter a considerable silence. "Look at me, for instance. I come outhere from Ioway more'n twenty-five years ago, when I was only a boy.When my pa died my ma, she moved back to Ioway. I stuck around here,like you and lots of other fellers, and done like you all, just thebest I could. Some way the country sort of took a holt on me. Itdoes, ain't it the truth?"
His friend nodded silently.
"Well, so I stuck around and done about what I could, same as you,ain't that so, Wid? I prospected some, but you know how hard it is toget any money into a mine, no matter what you've found fer a prospect.I got along somehow—seems like folks didn't use to pester so much, theway they do to-day. And you know onct I was just on the point ofstarting out fer Arizony with that old miner, Pop Haynes—do yousuppose I'd struck anything if I'd of went down there?"
"Nobody can say if you would or you wouldn't," replied Wid. "Fact is,you never got more'n half started."
"Well, you see, this old feller, Pop Haynes, he'd been down in Arizonytwenty years before, and he said there was lots of gold out there inthe desert. Well, we got a team hooked up, and a little flour andbacon, and we did start—now, I'll leave it to you, Wid, if we didn't.We got as far as Big Springs, on the railroad. What did we hear then?Why, news comes up from down in Arizony that a railroad has went outinto the desert, and that them mines has been discovered. What's theuse then fer us to start fer Arizony with a wagon and team? Likeenough all the good stakes would be took up before we could get there.Old Pop and me, we just turned back, allowing it was the sensiblestthing to do."
"And you been in around here ever since."
"Yes, sir; yes, sir, that's what I been. Been around here ever since.I told you the country kind of takes a holt on a feller. Ain't it thetruth? Well, I trapped a little since then in the winters, and killedelk for the market some, like you know, and fished through the ice overon the lakes, like you know. Some days I'd make three or four dollarsa day fishing. So at last when that Swede, Big Aleck, got run out ofthe county, I fell into his ranch. There ain't a better in the wholevalley. Look at that hay land, Wid. You got to admit that this hereis one of the best places in Montany."
"Well, maybe it is," said his friend and neighbor. "Leastways, it'sgood enough to run like you mean to run it."
"I'm a-going to run her all right. She's all under wire—the Swededone that before I bought his quit claim. Can't no sheep get in on mehere. I'll bet you all my clothes that I'll cut six hundred ton of haythis season—leastways I would if my horse hadn't hurt hisself in thewire the other day. Now, you figure up what six hundred ton of haycomes to in the stack, at prices hay is bringing now."
"Trouble is, your hay ain't in the stack, Sim. You'll just about cuthay enough to buy yourself flour and bacon for next winter, and that'llbe about all. If you worked the place right you'd make plenty ferto—"
"Fer to be human?"
"Well, yes, that's about it, Sim."
"That's right hard—doing all your own work outside and doing all yourown cooking and everything all the time in your own house. Just livingalong twenty years one day after another, all by your own self, andnever—never—"
His voice trailed off faintly, and he left the sentence unfinished.Wid Gardner completed it for him.
"And never having a woman around?" said he.
"Ain't it the truth?" said Sim Gage suddenly. His eyes ran furtivelyaround the room in which they sat, taking in, without noting orfeeling, the unutterable squalor of the place.
"Well," said his friend after a time, rising, "it'd be a fine place tofetch a woman to, wouldn't it? But