THE WIND ^yieiro-uoia^vyn- Mayer Picture r-BTTV -SH) .OOKS^UKE HER OEB SELE^^x' THE WIND BY DOROTHY SCARBOROUGH ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES FROM THE PHOTOPLAY A METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER PICTURE STARRING LILLIAN GISH GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Publithed by Arrangemeat with Harper & Brothers THE WIND COPYRIGHT, PRINTED IN 1925, BY HARPER & BROTHERS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THE fi^IND THE WIND r 'HE wind was the cause of it all. The sand, too, had a share in it, and human beings were in- volved, but the wind was the primal force, and but for it the whole series of events would not have happened. It took place in West Texas, years and years ago, be- fore the great ranges had begun to be cut up into farms and ploughed and planted to crops, when there was nothing to break the sweep of the wind across the treeless prairies, when the sand blew in blinding fury across the plains, or lay in mocking waves that never broke on any howsoever-distant beach, or piled in mounds that fickle gusts removed almost as soon as they were erected — when for endless miles there seemed nothing but wind and sand and empty, far off sky. But perhaps you do not understand the winds of West Texas. And even if you knew them as they are now, that would mean little, for today they are not as they used to be. Civilization has changed them, has tamed them, as the vacqueros and the cowboys changed and gentled the wild horses that roamed the prairies long ago. Civilization has taken from them some- thing of their fiery, elemental force, has humbled their [ 1 ] THE fFIND spirit. Man, by building houses here and there upon the plains, by stretching fences, by planting trees, has broken the sweep of the wind — by ploughing the land into farms where green things grow has lessened its power to hurl the sand in fury across the wide and empty plains. Man has encroached on the domain of the winds, and gradually, very gradually, is conquer- ing them. But long ago it was different. The winds were wild and free, and they were more powerful than human beings. Among the wild horses of the plains there would be now and then one fleet and strong and cunning, that could never be trapped by man, that had never felt the control of bridle, the sting of spur — a stallion that raced over the prairies at will, uncaptured and xmcapturable; one with supernatural force and speed, so that no pursuer could ever come up with him; so cunning that no device could ever snare him — a being of diabolic wisdom. One could hear his wild neighing in the night, as he sped over the plains. One could fancy he saw his mane flying back, his hoofs striking fire even from the yielding sand, a Satanic horse, for whom no man would ever be the match. Some thought him a ghost horse, imperishable. But now his shrill neighing is heard no more on the prairies by night, for man has driven him out. He has fled to other prairies, vast and fenceless, where man has not intruded, and now one knows him only in legend. So the norther was a wild stallion that raced over THE fFIND the plains, mighty in power, cruel in spirit, more to be feared than man. One could hear his terrible neigh- ings in the night, and fancy one saw him sweeping over the plains with his imperious mane flying back- ward and his fiery hoofs ready to trample one down. In the old days, the winds were the enemies of women. Did they hate them because they saw in them the symbols of that civilization which might gradually lessen their own power? Because it was for women that men would build houses as once they made dugouts? — ^would increase their herds, would turn the lonfenced pastures into farms, furrowing the land that had never known touch of plough since time began? — stealing the sand from the winds? The winds were cruel to women that came under their tyranny. They were at them ceaselessly, buf- feting them with icy blasts in winter, burning them with hot breath in summer, parching their skins and roughening their hair, and trying to wear down their nerves by attrition, and drive them away. And the sand was the weapon of the winds. It stung the face like bits of glass, it blinded the eyes; it seeped into the houses through closed windows and doors and through every crack and crevice, so that it might make the beds harsh to lie on, might make the food gritty to taste, the air stifling to breathe. It piled in drifts against any fence or obstruction, as deep as snow after a northern blizzard. How could a frail, sensitive woman fight the wind? How oppose a wild, shouting voice that never let her THE WIND know the peace 6i sflence — a resistless force that was at her all the day, a naked, unbodied wind — ^like a ghost more terrible because invisible — ^that wailed to her across waste places in the night, calling to her like a demon lover.? CHAPTER ONE ^ YOUNG girl was traveling alone on a west- bound train one day in late December, between Christmas and the new year. Family loyalty had named her Letitia after a great-aunt, but affection had softened that to Letty, so that she had not suffered un- duly. Until recently love had smoothed all things in her life. She was a pretty girl, who looked younger than her eighteen years — a slight and almost childish figure in her black dress, with her blonde and wavy hair, her eyes blue as periwinkles in old-fashioned gar- dens, and her cheeks delicately pink as the petals of peach blooms. She looked tired now, however, for she had come all the distance from Virginia to Texas. She had spent the night at Fort Worth to break her jour? ney, and now she was on the last day of her trip. She would reach Sweetwater that night. She had never seen Sweetwater, nor heard it de- scribed, and she knew of it only as a postmark on a letter. But the name was pleasant-sounding, and so she whispered it to herself from time to time, while her fancy conjured up pictures of what the little town would look like. There would be home-like houses with their dream-inviting open fires in big fireplaces, and their porches overgrown with vines, as in the [5] THE JFIND Virginia villages she knew. There would be lawns and orchards, and gardens with all the flowers one loved, each in its season, a cycle of beauty from early spring to late fall. And trees, of course, whose great, benignant branches sheltered nesting birds in spring, whose leaves in summer laced the sky and rustled softly when the wind blew, and sometimes hung as motionless as pictured leaves when there was no breeze. Would there be a little river, perhaps, slipping like a silver shadow through the town, where a girl and a boy might row a boat on summer afternoons*? — or a creek that showed rainbow minnows in its shallows and ferns along the banks'? Or a lake, if only a tiny one, or a pond where water lilies bloomed with creamy petals and hearts of gold, and water hyacinths purple- blue? One thing she was sure of — there would be water, sweet and cool and pure, for wasn’t the place named Sweetwater? As one visions heaven according to his dreams of loved earthly beauty, so Letty Mason pieced together a Sweetwater that was to contain all the things she cared for most. She had to do something to keep from being too bitterly unhappy. When there was nothing to look to but a past that grief and separation had broken up, and a future that held she knew not what, and only so much of a present as a ride on a train, what could a girl do? She gave a look at her present in an impulse of panic to escape the sorrow of yesterdays and the terror [ 6 ] THE WIND of unknown tomorrows. The day coach with its rows of red plush seats, all turned the same way like people that dared not look behind them, would be all right for any one who was not alone and unhappy and afraid. Until a few months ago Letty could have laughed and had fun in it, while now it seemed ugly and hostile. At one end of the coach there was a big blackened coal bin and an iron stove as huge and red as a Santa Claus, when the brakeman had stuffed it with coal. There were not many passengers in the car — a few men with broad-brimmed Stetson hats, several mothers with their babies, a few older children, and one grandmotherly grey-haired woman crocheting white-thread lace. A little girl in a red-plaid dress and hair braided in tight, serious pig-tails, kept pacing up and down the aisle, touching the tops of the seats as if in some mysterious game. An urchin of about five, with eyes as round and expressionless as glass marbles, spilled his plump body half over the seat in front of Letty and stared at her without winking. She tried to smile at him, but she could not manage the necessary energy, and in fact the youngster seemed to expect no response to his scrutiny. A man across the aisle looked at her now and then over the top of his Dallas News, and smiled tenta- tively, but she turned away each time. He was a rather handsome man, with wavy black hair and dark eyes and a mustache that quirked up at the ends. He was proud of that mustache, she decided, for he played [7] THE fFIND •with it affectionately. He looked old, over thirty, she felt sure. There •was something faintly familiar about him, suggestive of some one else she had known, perhaps long ago. As she looked at him surreptitiously, she was sure that she had never seen this man before, — ^because he was a person that she would have remembered if she had ever kno-wn him — ^but he was teasingly reminis- cent of another. Who was it*? She tried to analyze the impressions he called up, — half pleasurable recol- lections, half fear and repulsion, vaguely commingled as in the waking remembrance of a dream. When she had been traveling for several hours, the conductor came along and stopped to speak to her, as if he thought she might be lonesome. “Gettin’ on all hunky dory?” “Yes.” She contrived a smile for him, because he was so kind, and his eyebrows were so funny! They were black and they spurted suddenly out from above his eyes like mustaches stuck on in the wrong place. They fascinated her, because she had never seen any like them before. But she mustn’t let the good man know that she was smiling at his mustaches instead of at him. “What is Sweetwater like?” she asked. “Do you suppose I’ll love it?” His eyebrows arched themselves jerkily. “Well, h-mm, that depends on the folks you’ve got there, daughter.” [ 8 ] THE WIND “I don’t see why,” she contended. “There are lots of places you could like without folks. There are places — ^you know — where you never could get lone- some, even if you stayed there by yourself for hours and hours. They’re so pretty and peaceful they rest you, and happify you, as the darkies say, so you feel right at home there. And you enjoy being yourself so much that you don’t miss other people.” “Yes, that’s right.” The eye-mustaches twinkled at her cheerily and then the conductor moved oflE down the aisle without trying to prove his point, as if in- deed he preferred not to. Letty huddled again in the comer of her red plush prison and gazed out of the window. The train was scudding along what seemed to be abandoned peach orchards, where unkempt trees were growing, their leafless branches sprawled and scrawny, instead of being trimmed and tended as in the orchards that she knew at home. And there were no fences round them, no protection at all to keep thieves from stealing the fruit in summer when there was any. Queer! They were the largest orchards she had ever seen, she reflected, for they stretched along both sides of the track for miles and miles. She hadn’t noticed just where they began, and it seemed as if they never would end. The groxmd was covered with a dead grass that waved in the wind, bent low, as if water were rippling over it. The trees weren’t planted in rows, but scat- tered irregularly in a wild and lawless abandon. She puzzled over the strangeness of it all. She thought [9] THE WIND illogically of a remark she had heard once from an old man, “All signs fail in Texas.” When the little red-plaid girl came by again, Letty put out a hand to detain her. “Why don’t they have fences to their peach orchards?” she asked. ‘Where?” the child wished to know. Letty pointed to the trees on each side of the track. The little girl stared at her in puzzled fashion for a moment, and then she giggled, with laughter as light and spontaneous as soap-bubbles of mirth. The Dallas Nevjs was lowered and Letty saw that the man across the aisle was smiling in amusement somewhat carefully restrained. He had been listen- ing, then, to what she said! “Those are mesquite trees. Wild,” he volunteered. Letty blushed and drew back. When Letty blushed, the process was one to distract and delight the beholder — as if the pink of peach blooms had suddenly turned into rosy flame. It always scared and upset her when it happened, so that in consequence she blushed more vividly than ever. As if to reassure her, because sympathetic of her emotions, the man erected the barricade of Dallas News again, though with manifest reluctance. After a moment, when he no doubt thought that she had somewhat recovered, he ventured forth again. “They do look like old peach trees. I’ve heard folks often say the same thing.” Letty made no answer. With a lingering glance, which made her color flare THE WIND up again, he retired behind his paper and made no effort to prolong the conversation. As the miles slipped by, Letty noticed that the mes- quites tended to grow smaller. At first they had been large, not like forest trees, of course, but good-sized, while now they were dwindling. Why was that? She looked for other trees, but saw none of her old familiar friends — only these stranger mesquites. She felt depressed and forlorn. Would life snatch from her even the trees she loved? But of course it was a long way yet to Sweetwater, and the landscape could change a lot before she got there. She needn’t worry. Still, she leaned her cheek against her hand and gave herself up to imhappy premonitions. To go into a country you didn’t know about was hard, and to leave Ae home you had loved all your life was cruel. Life didn’t leave you much choice, but just shoved you around as if you hadn’t any right to feelings. Suddenly, when she was wiping away a surrepti- tious tear, she was roused by a touch On her shoulder. Starting up, she saw that the man from across the aisle had moved over and sat beside her. He spoke casually. “Like to see some prairie dogs? Maybe you never saw any.” “No,” she said, fluttering rosily. “I never have.” He pointed one forefinger toward the ground beside the track and her following gaze saw a stretch of land with small hummocks scattered over it like earthen breastworks thrown up for Lilliputian warfare. Queer little animals were disporting Aemselves about them. THE WIND red-brown, dumpy creatures like young puppies that had not yet begun to lengthen into dogs — some sitting on their hatinches on top of the movmds, some scamper- ing about on the ground that was bare of vegetation and hard-packed as a floor. Some looked with sus- picion at the train, and then dived down into holes in the ground. Some ran clumsily away, while a few held their place with impudent disdain of engines and hraman beings. “This is a dog town,” the man went on to elaborate. “They have a colony, you see, and they dig under- ground homes for themselves, and live down there. I reckon that’s where the old settlers got their notion of dugouts. Sometimes rattlers live in the holes with them, or maybe only in holes they’ve left And ground squirrels, and hoot owls. They have tunnels running between the mounds all over the place.” “Why, how cunning!” she cried, forgetting her woes and her faint fear of this stranger. To think there were such darling little animals she had never even heard of! She leaned in excitement against the window and flattened her nose against the glass like a youngster, to watch them in their antics. “Does a prairie-dog town have a mayor and a city council?” She laughed dimplingly. “I don’t see the church, or the school house or the jail.” He grinned. “I reckon they’re not much of a re- ligious or educated bunch, any more than the rest of us out here. But they’re sociable little cusses and THE JFIND mighty human in some of their ways. The children make pets of ’em-” Her fancy flashed off to the government of a prairie- dog settlement. “That fat, lazy one there must be the bigwig, the rich man,” she hazarded. “His mound is higher than the others, and he didn’t duck when he saw the train coming. Some of ’em are silly cowards.” “Like folks,” he concurred, as he twisted his mus- tache with long, browned fingers, and smiled. He settled back at ease beside her, as if there could be no possibility of his being unwelcome. His air was that of a man who had a lazy energy well con- trolled, beneath whose apparent indolence a superb strength lay concealed, whose interested indifference was not greatly accustomed to rebuffs. He smilingly looked down at her. Letty, who had been but momentarily startled out of her shyness in the excitement of seeing prairie dogs for the first time, now gave a quick frown and drew back within her shell of reserve. But the stranger appeared not to notice. Or was it that he noticed and disregarded? “Live in Texas?” he asked. “No,” she said coldly. She wouldn’t talk with him, and then he would go away and leave her alone. Who was he that he should speak to her like this? And then, almost without her volition, her sense of truthfulness answered his question. “I — ^haven’t — but I guess I’m going to,” she faltered, facing the fact [ 13 ] THE WIND trumpet vine with its wonderful red bugles, climbing up the trees and covering the fence posts and stumps. . . . And a vine we call the cigar plant, with its little, long red bloom like a tiny lighted cigar.” “That’s a sensible-sounding plant,” he threw in. “Vines are all beautiful, I think. They’re like charity, for they go covering up the ugly things and places, the dead trees, the stumps and rough fence posts, and make everything graceful.” Her tone was dreamily reminiscent now. “That’s right,” he agreed, with smiling attention. “And the flowers. . . . There are all sorts of wild flowers there, too, so many I couldn’t name them all, but I love every one. There’s the butterfly weed, that the darkeys call ‘chigger plant.’ How funny to call it that, — when it has gay orange blossoms like gor- geous butterflies lighted there for a second. You can almost see them fold and unfold their wings!” “Yes?” “Then there are the daisies that bloom everywhere in early summer, acres on acres of them, white, with golden hearts, nodding at you in the sun like children telling you to come and play with them. And wild tiger lilies in the shadowy places, like Indian girls in gay blankets. . . . And the blue-eyed grass, and Jack- in-the-pulpit, and Bouncing Bet. . . . And the wild roses are the sweetest things in the world, so pink and delicate and perfect! And the jewel-weed in shady spots .... and wild violets, and Queen Anne’s Lace, with the flowers as fine as cobwebs, and die [i6] THE JFIND little birds’ nests of green curled up. And wild morn- ing-glory running everywhere, and black-eyed Susans. And, oh, I couldn’t possibly tell you about all of them!” She paused breathlessly, after her rush of words. Then she blushed to think how much she had been talking to this stranger. “Guess rU have to go and see them myself some time,” he rendered opinion. So maybe he was interested, after all, and not pre- tending. “And the trees — ” she went on, not wishing to slight such dear friends. “I mustn’t forget them. Such wonderful trees as we do have there! Pines that stand on tiptoe to peek into heaven, so I always feel like asking them what they see there. And tulip poplars that have such gorgeous blooms, and dogwood that makes the hills all white in springtime. . . . And holly with its berries for Christmas. . . . There’s a big mimosa on our lawn. Did you ever see a mimosa?” He shook his head regretfully. His look seemed to hint that he recognized that not having seen a mimosa tree he had led a wasted life. She tried to make it up to him. “Its leaves are lacy, like ferns, and its blooms are tiny pompons like flowers of the sensitive plant, pink- ish-yellow, soft as soft. There’s a big magnolia there, too. You know a magnolia is such a joy, for you can write on the leaves while they are glossy and dark, [ 17] THE WIND anti even alter they’ve turned brown, you can still read what you’ve written. . . . And the flowers! When I see a magnolia blossom, it seems to me it must have fallen down from heaven in the night.” She caught her breath sharply. “I do hope there’ll be magnolias in Sweetwater.” He cherished his mustache without enlightening her on that point. ‘What else is there?” he asked. “There’s a hedge of crepe myrtle by the garden. In late summer it has rose-colored blooms like silky, crinkled crepe, the prettiest thing you ever saw. You want to love it, and make little dance frocks out of it! ... In the fall the trees in the town and in the woods are all colors, yellow and brown and bronze and red, so that I often wonder which I love best, springtime or autumn.” “WTiat did you do all day?” he questioned. “Oh, I wasn’t idle! I took care of Mother, and made my own clothes, and taught a class in Sunday school, and helped with church suppers. And I read a lot, everything I could get, and I took music lessons, and had a good time with the boys and girls.” She turned to him suddenly, shutting the door on her past. “Now tell me about Sweetwatet And please tell me I’ll love it there !” The blue eyes, the scarlet fluted mouth, the tremu' lous dimple all entreated him to speak well of Sweet- water. He uttered but one curt word, “No.” [i8] THE fFIND Her eyes widened in dismay and reproach. “Why not?” He folded his arms and looked at her keenly. “Go back to your Virginia, little girl. This country’s not like what you’ve been used to. Take my advice and vamoose — while the going’s good.” Her chin trembled. “But I can’t!” she jerked. “I haven’t any money — and I haven’t got anything to go back to!” ‘Why did you ever leave?” he flung at her. She looked at him with piteous eyes, defending herself against what she felt to be an accusation. “Mother died, and she was all I had left.” She caught her under lip with her teeth to stop its quivering. “And she’d been sick so long that after she was dead, the debts licked up the homestead and everything, just like an earthquake swallowing them.” ‘WTiat are you doing so far down here?” “Cousin Beverley owns a ranch in West Texas. I haven’t seen him since I was a child, but the pastor wrote to him after Mother died, and asked him if I couldn’t come out and live with them. Cousin Bever- ley said to come on, if I thought it best, that I could teach the children. He was afraid I wouldn’t like it much, but the neighbors thought I’d better come. It would be a change for me, they said.” “It’ll be a change, all right.” His tone was grim. “A hell of a change !” She felt chill with an indefinable fear of the future, as if some cold, dark wing had farmed her. She tried [ 19] THE WIND to ask him a question, but for the moment she could not find her voice to speak. Her blue eyes gazed en- thralled at him, as if he could read for her the future, could reveal what lay for her behind the curtains of the coming days. He turned to face her unsmilingly. “What’s your cousin’s name?” “Beverley Mason.” Even the syllables of that dear name sounded un- familiar to her, as if this strange environment had cast a speU over everj’thing. “I’ve seen him. He’s a good hombre,’’ he answered briefly. “But he don’t live in Sweetwater. What made you think he did?” “His letter was mailed from there.” He gave an unhumorous smile. “Out in this coun- try a man may live a himdred miles from his post- mark. He don’t go for mail twice a day, y’under- stand. Bev Mason’s ranch is over twenty-five miles from Sweetwater. I’ve got an outfit farther west my- self, but I live in Fort Worth. Couldn’t hog-tie me to stay ail 5-ear round out here. Savezf” The hands that lay loosely in her lap were trem- bling. “But what is the trouble with the coimtry — that you tell me to go back?” Its all right for them that like it. Some do — mostly men, though. It’s hard on the women. Folks say the West is good enough for a man or a dog, but no place for a woman or a cat.” “But why, why?” THE WIND “The wind is the worst thing.” She drew a relieved sigh. “Oh, wind? That’s nothing to be afraid of.” He went on as though she had not spoken. “It’s ruination to a woman’s looks and nerves pretty often. It dries up her skin till it gets brown and tough as leather. It near ’bout puts her eyes out with the sand it blows in ’em aU day. It gets on her nerves with its constant blowing — ^makes her irritable and jumpy.” She gave a light, casual gesture with one hand. ‘It blows everywhere, I reckon, even in Virginia. Some- times in winter we have regular storms of wind and rain. But we don’t think anything of them.” He gave her an amused sidelong glance, and twisted his mustache in silence. His air was that of an adult who disdains to attempt to make anything clear to a persistent but silly child. “What else is there so terrible out here?” she prod- ded. The man was just teasing her, of course, and she Would let him see that she wasn’t so easily gulled. “The work out here is hard on women. Can’t get uny help, and can’t have the conveniences they have in other sections. Plenty o’ cowboys to run the ranch, but no women to help in the house. And the chuck department on a regular ranch is no job to sneeze at, let me tell you.” “I won’t mind that, either,” she affirmed coura- geously. “I always worked at home, as I told you. I •did the dusting.” “You’ll have a chore on your hands if you keep up [ 21 ] THE WIND that end of it out here,” he said sardonically. His white teeth gleamed in a smile. She was rather breathless, but would not surrender. “What else?” she demanded. “Women get lonesome. No neighbors if you live on a ranch. Just a few cowboys and too damned many cattle and coyotes. It’s enough to run a woman loco.” “But the men stand it, don’t they?” “It’s a man-sized job. And the cow-punchers can go to town every so often and get on a high lonesome and lose money at poker. That relieves ’em. But the women can’t do that, poor calicoes. They got to stay bottled up, and it’s liable to bust ’em, sooner or later.” She began to feel that he might be serious. She took a few moments to study the question, while she looked out of the window in silence. Then she turned to him. “It’s not what I’d choose, but I didn’t know what else to do. Oh, why aren’t girls taught to make their living and take care of them- selves, the same as men?” Her little black-bordered handkerchief dabbed at her eyes. The man turned his searching gaze on her and spoke meditatively, with a sort of crisp drawl. “It’d be a pity for that pretty face of yours to be ruined by the wind — ^like I’ve seen some women’s faces. If you stay out here, ’twon’t be long before your skin won’t be as pink and white as it is now. In a little while your hair won’t be as yellow and soft, after the hot sun has bleached it and the wind has roughed it. THE WIND Pretty soon your eyes won’t be as clear and blue as they are now, after the sand has near ’bout blinded ’em — you stay out here.” She turned from him in bitter silence and gazed at the telegraph poles. The man beside her whistled softly, a weird, haunt' ing tune. Then he began to sing words to it. “Oh, bury me not on the lone prai-ne, Where the wild coyotes will howl over me ! In a narrow grave, just six by three. Oh, bury me not on the lone prai-ne/” Tears began to trickle down her cheeks. He leaned closer and spoke softly, yet with a hint of savage constraint, as if he disliked his words. “If you don’t want to go — ^j'ou don’t have to, little girl. Come back to Fort Worth with me, and I’ll — up something for you.” The eyes lifted to his held no look of suspicion, but only reserve and a vague fear. His own lowered before their innocence. “Thank you,” she said with dignity, wiping away her tears. “But I couldn’t do that, of com'se. I couldn’t impose on a stranger. And Cousin Beverley is expecting me.” “You’re right — better go to Cousin Bev,” he mut- tered. His eyes looked disappointed, yet relieved. His face of a sudden seemed youngei, more boyish, as if a mask of years and worldly experience had dropped [23] THE WIND from it- Then, as he pondered, the mask slipped back in place, and the years laid their shadows over his eyes once more. “I’ll give you my name and address, so you can write me any time you feel you want to leave,” he said hurriedly. If you find you can’t stand it let me know, and I’ll come running. I may come, anyhow.” He took from his pocket an envelope, extracted from it a letter which he threw out of the window, and then gave her the envelope. It was addressed to Mr. Wirt Roddy, Fort Worth, Texas. The writing was that of a woman. Letty took it somewhat dubiously. “Thank you — but I guess I’ll not need to use it. I’m going to try to like my — ^new home.” “Here’s hoping you will,” he responded, suave and unperturbed. “But keep the address, so you’ll have it handy in case you want to make a getaway. I can always help you out. I’ve got spondulix to do what I like with. And even if Fort Worth’s not so pretty as your Virginia, it’s not as bad as the cow and sand country at that, where the wind comes larrupin’ over the prairie like wild mustangs on a stampede.” “You talk about wind like it was human,” she said ■with an attempt at bravado. He chuckled. “No, ’tain’t human. It’s a devil. Seven devils sometimes, when it goes rampagin’ round.” “Well — what of it — so long as you know it’s noth- ing but wind, and can’t hurt you?” [24] THE WIND Her eyes had an upward appeal, and her voice a lilt like a little brook speaking softly to itself — the innocent candor of a child that has been protected and gently dealt with, so that it is not used to being hurt or afraid, and scarcely knows enough to feel apprehension of any danger. His gaze expressed playful superiority. “Ho! Can’t hurt you?” he scoffed. “Don’t you know this is a cyclone country you’re coming to? Hasn’t any- body told you that the settlers dig themselves storm cellars to run to, almost before they build their houses?” Her cheek paled a little, but the dimple near the comer of her mouth still twinkled intrepidly, and her voice was brave, though smalL “What are cyclones like?” ‘Well, a cyclone is a tornado of a special deadly brand we have out here,” he bragged. “It’s a bull buffalo of a wind that whirls in a circle like a dancing dervish, while it races ahead at the same time. It’s shaped like a funnel, small at the groimd, and spread- ing out wide at the top.” He gestured to illustrate, and paused in enjoyment of her dismay. “It’s a regular wind, a snuff-dipper of a wind. It catches up sand so’s you can see it plain as a tree. It goes upward toward the sky like a cloud. It whizzes faster’n an express train can go, and where it’s passed, there ain’t enough remains of anything to hold an inquest over. If it was a house or a town, THE JFIND it’s in splinters, and if it was a person — ^well, there’s nothing left but a grease spot.” He smiled in pride over this virile wind he had called up. “Did you ever see one?” Her voice quavered in spite of her effort to keep it firm. “Once. And once was a-plenty. I was considerable distance off, too, when I viewed it. You can see the thing for a mile, if it comes in the daytime, but if it comes at night, you don’t know anything, till it swoops down on you, roarin’ like a prairie fire,” His tone was serious now. She tried to sift out the truth from the jest, and her thumping heart told her that he had not invented this Texas storm. She sat with paling cheeks and hands tightly clasped in her lap. So she was coming to a cyclone country! And wind was not merely a thing to be hated because it would ruin your skin and your eyes and hair, and wreck your nerves. It was a terror that might pass by day or night, to leave death and dev- astation in its path! In the day, when you could see its frightfulness, — or in the night when you could only hear it roaring, and i ma gine ! , . , She shuddered as she pictured a vast, swaying cloud of sand that spiralled to the sky, a mighty engin e of destruction sweepmg over the land, before which hriman beings were as helpless as rag dolls, that tore houses and towns to splinters. A cyclone! As in a nightmare she saw herself, palsied with terror, watch- [26] THE (FIND ing the mad, immense whirlwind sweep toward her, engulf her! . . . Her body quivered, and the little rounded chin was unsteady. “I think you’re cruel to tell me such things to scare me!” she cried, with a catch in her voice. He looked gratified at the effect of his eloquence, and magnanimously willing to temper the horrors a trifle in compassion for her tremors. “We-ell, now. I’m only just telling you what you got to look out for in this section. But of course cyclones don’t come so often. You might live here for a long time and never see one, and then again you might run spang into one the first rattle out of the box.” She turned from him and gazed out of the window. Even if all this was true, it wasn’t kind of him to tell her, to scare her when she was coming out there to live. The man folded his arms and sat in silence beside her, humorously tolerant of her resentment, with the air of a man who is sure of himself and of others, and hence need feel small impulse toward haste or awkwardness. The girl felt a quiver of fear of him, she could not have told why. She had never been afraid of any- body before, since in her quiet world even tramps were just men out of work, who wanted food and a kindly word before they passed on their way. But this stranger made her giddily apprehensive in some [27] THE WIND inexplicable way. Why should he tease her, and scare her like this? She wouldn’t notice him any more, she would forget what he had said, and then maybe it wouldn’t be true. If she looked out of the window and let him see she didn’t care to talk to him any more, he would go away. Perhaps he was just teasing her, and presently would apologize, and tell her there was nothing to be afraid of in this West where she had to live. She glanced at him to see if he had it in mind to apologize, but he only smiled at her and said no word. . . . She wouldn’t speak, she wouldn’t, at all. She would ignore him, she would forget him. But she couldn’t, somehow. She was aware of his presence, even though she wouldn’t look at him. Her spirit tremblingly closed up under his influence, like the leaves of a sensitive plant at an alien touch. Her very body knew that he was there I . . . But she kept her face resolutely turned from him, her eyes fixed on the landscape that glided by. She saw a wide, flat expanse of prairie, with diminishing mesquites, dead bunch-grass, on which long-homed cattle were grazing in the tmfenced pastures along the track — ^gaunt creatures that stopped their feeding to look in panic at the train as it approached them. The very cows seemed afraid of something, in this strange countiy! . . . Presently she saw on the ground beside the track the carcass of a cow with long horns, and ribs prom- [28] THE TFIND inently outlined beneath the hide, a starved-looking cow. She felt a thrill of pity for its fate, and thought of the sleek, well-fed cows in the pastures back home. Would the new owners of old Bossy, the brown-e^xd Jersey that had had to be sold, be good to her? She had loved Bossy like a friend, and had wept at seeing her led away. But Bossy was fat and gentle, not like these wild creatures. Well, at least there would be plenty of cattle on a ranch, and maybe she could make friends with some of them. There would be little young calves to pet, with wobbly legs and cold, poking noses that nuzzled into your hand. . . . The mesquites were much smaller now, scarcely more than bushes, and the wind was blowing harder, for the gray grasses over the plains were bent lower in the sweep of it. . . . As the train rattled noisily along, some of the cattle galloped off to a distance and gazed back in timorous belligerency as at an enemy to be feared and distrusted. . . . There beside the track was another body, one that had evidendy been there a long time, for the bones were showing through the hide. Who looked after all those cattle, anyhow? She couldn’t see any houses near, any signs of human habitation. What a lone- some land it was I - . . Presently the en^e gave a shrill hoot, as if signal- ling, but there was no one in sight. Was it just prac- ticing, to keep in running order? The distances be- tween towns was so long out here that maybe the en- [29] THE WIND gine would forget how to hoot if it didn’t clear its throat now and then. Engines were funny things, almost like folks. . . . In another instant they passed a cow that was stag- gering along the track from the direction of the engine, one hind leg hanging broken and useless, its back bleeding. Letty cried out, “Oh, the poor thing!” The man turned a careless glance at the animal. “Yep, train hit ’er.” She shuddered. “Why don’t they stop and do something for the poor creature?” He shrugged his shoulders and answered comfort- ably. “ It’ll die after awhile, likely, same as these others you see along the track. Train gets one pretty often.” “Why, how perfectly terrible!” she gasped. A lump moved up and down painfully in her throat. He shook his head reassuringly. “These critters aren’t worth much a head. No loss.” She flashed him a look of burning indignation. “And is that what has happened to the others I saw?” “Sure. You see, there’s no fence to the right of way along here. The dum fools try to cross in front of the train, an’ they get what’s coming to ’em. Too bad, but it can’t be helped,” he added, in concession to her evident disturbance over the matter. She leaned her head upon her hand, of a sudden feeling sick and faint. Her mind followed the poor thing as it staggered along, hurt and terrified, to fall [30] THE JFIND by the way in that lonely land, to die maybe of star- vation, by slow degrees. And the train hooted on its way, not caring for its sufferings, a train full of people who ought to be kind! Her hands clenched tightly. “Life is cruel!” she choked. “Looks hard, but that’s the way life is,” he said, more sympathetically. “The engineer toots the whis- tle when he sees a cow on the track, to give her warn- ing she’d better get off. If she don’t tumble to it, the cow-ketcher catches her and throws her to one side, so she don’t get ground under the wheels and maybe wreck the train.” She made no answer. She was facing for the first time life’s possibilities of cruelty. How could this man talk so indifferently, when — He went on in elaboration. “Most times they get off in time. And train schedules would be shot to pieces if they stopped to tend to all the old cows in this cattle country.” She couldn’t argue the question with him, but she still felt vehemently that men should be more humane. ... If she tried to speak she might begin to cry, and she mustn’t do that. She gazed steadily out of the window. . . . There was another prairie-dog town, its citizens coming out to watch the train come just as the boys and girls did when tlie afternoon train came in at home. Home ! — Her throat ached with suppressed sobs, but she held [31] THE WIND her head erect. She wouldn’t give way, she wouldn’t cry! . . . Presently the man went on with the discussion as if there had been no pause. “And you never can tell. Sometimes they die quick and are out of their misery. But then again an old cow that looks ready for the boneyard will get over her broken leg and hop around spry as you please on three pins.” At last she spoke with repressed intensity of tone, “And is this the trail to your West — the bodies of the poor creatures you’ve killed?” “Yes, if you was to fall off the train, and didn’t see the track to go by, you could pretty near find your way west by following the trail of dead cattle here and there along the road.” “It’s horrible!” He smiled genially. “Don’t blame me for it, little girl. It’s not my train, and not even my West, as I told you. I just own a few sections of land out there for my ranch, and I go out now and then. But it’s not my regular stamping-ground, remember.” She sat in silence tor a time, reflecting. All the old values seemed left behind. Ahead lay the path to the West, with its trail of broken bodies, its threats of storms and unknown perils, its winds that would tor- ment her. Behind her lay the road whose shining rails led backward toward Virginia, toward home. . . . The afternoon was waning now, and she could see the sun begiiming to sink toward the west. At this time in Virginia, the colored boys would be driv ing [32] THE fFIND the cows home from pasture, their soft voices calling to them one by one, by name. . . . A wave of desolation swept over her, almost over- whelmed her. Homesickness so acute that it was physical agony possessed her. She felt she must shriek aloud for the train to stop, for the wheels to reverse, and let her go back to Virginia. She felt a mad im- pulse to fling herself from the train, to chance her fate by the wayside, even in that wild, lonely land, to walk back to Virginia if need be, if she could get there no other way. Home ! . . . Then a still crueler hurt checked her savagely — ^the remembrance that she had no home there any more. Strangers warmed themselves at the old hearthfires. The household possessions were scattered, even het childhood books and t05