The Exile of The Lariat/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
MRS. ELLIS
SEVERAL days were consumed in gathering together the members of the Conservation Committee. During this time, Hugh, at Mrs. Morgan’s suggestion, outlined in his mind the stories which he wished to tell the committees, but also at her suggestion, he said little to Grafton or to the old guard which suddenly ceased to hold sessions in The Lariat. It was the first concrete intimation to Hugh that the town was lining itself up against him.
A day or so after his conversation with Mrs. Morgan, Jessie rode down from the ranch, which was closing up the dude end of its business for the season. It was evening when she tied Magpie in front of The Lariat and walked slowly into the store. Hugh looked up from his note-book. His ideas of beauty were of late entirely biased by his intense admiration for Miriam’s delicate charm. But in spite of his deep preoccupation, he was conscious of a reluctant admiration for something in Jessie he never before had sensed.
She was wearing corduroy riding breeches and—the fall nights were cold—a heavy, soft riding coat of white cheviot. She was bare-headed and, in spite of the frost, her flannel blouse was open at the throat. She swung with her easy, deliberate stride, the length of the store, without greeting Hugh and stood looking out at the brilliant moonlight on the river. There was in her manner, in the set of her broad shoulders, the swing of her slender thighs, a forcefulness and a grace that made Hugh think of a mountain lion he once had watched striding up to a hidden spring for a drink. Jessie the lazy, Jessie the indifferent, was showing a purposeful strength that was not the less apparent for its grace. Hugh’s little thrill of admiration was followed by a sudden added tensity of nerves. After all, Jessie was a force and evidently rather a tremendous one. He was then not to be allowed freedom in the enjoyment of his love any more than he was to be allowed to pursue his profession in peace. Very well; his jaw setting. He would fight for both.
Jessie turned finally. “Hughie,” she said, “I suppose you won’t believe me when I say that I’m sorry they are heckling you about the Old Sioux Tract.”
“Yes, I believe you,” replied Hugh, “but I must admit that I’m not particularly moved by your sorrow. You never came across until another woman showed you your mistake.”
“I know it,” answered Jessie, with unprecedented humbleness; then she added, bitterly, “though you never showed the side to me you showed to her. However, I didn’t come to discuss that. I want to help in your campaign.”
“No!” cried Hugh “If you think it’s possible for me to forget, even now, the suffering your sneers about my work have cost me, you’re more stupid than I think you are.”
“But you are taking help from my mother.”
“Oh, she! Why, she’s only a woman to me! Never has been anything more. But you were my wife. And at first, I loved you madly.”
Jessie’s eyes darkened, but she did not speak for a long moment. Then she murmured, “So I am not to help?”
“No,” repeated Hugh, still bitterly, “you are not to help.”
“And what is Miriam doing?” asked Jessie.
“She can do nothing, of course, but advise and sympathize.”
“And when, Hughie, do you plan to begin the fight for your divorce?”
“It would be a fight, would it, Jessie?”
“Yes”
“You know I wouldn’t fight a woman for freedom, don’t you? You are deliberately planning to torture me.”
Jessie uttered a long and curious laugh, which was interrupted by the entrance of Fred Allward. He greeted Jessie, and turned to Hugh.
“Now look at here, Hughie! If you think I can outfit and stay up on the Tract while you are putting up this fight, you’re mistaken. You let me go up to Cheyenne and tell that Utilities Commission what I think of ’em. I just ain’t going to hunt fossils for a while.”
Fred spat into the stove with a finality of gesture that brooked no argument. Hugh lighted a cigarette and managed at the same time to smile one-sidedly.
“Very well, Fred Mrs. Morgan is my campaign manager. You go over and get some orders from her.”
Fred swallowed his entire quid, choked, blinked and roared. “Who? Me? Orders from Mrs. Morgan? You are plum loco Why, I wouldn’t take orders from that woman to save my life.”
“She’s my mother, Fred,” said Jessie, in her lazy voice, that now carried an edge.
“And it isn’t to save your life, old timer,” added Hugh. “It’s to save the Tract.”
“To save the Tract! You mean to say you’re trusting her to do that? Now, I am going up to Cheyenne. Why, you poor maverick, you, that woman made a failure of her own husband and her own daughter! And she darn near made a failure of you. How do you expect her to run a fight like this?”
“Nevertheless, Fred,” said Hugh, firmly, “she’s made a wonderful success of herself in politics, and in that one thing I’ve entire confidence in her. You go on over there to the Indian Massacre and tell her I want her to explain our plans to you and that she’s to use you.”
Fred stood stiffly before Hugh, rumpling his gray beard fiercely. It was quite obvious that Hugh was asking the ultimate sacrifice of him.
“I ain’t never taken orders from a woman in all my life, not even my mother after I was big enough to run away. That’s the secret of my success. And Mrs. Morgan always did get my goat. That perky, smarty, new kind of a woman! And she can’t see a joke.”
“You don’t have to disparage her before Jessie, do you, Fred?” asked Hugh.
Fred apparently did not hear the question. “I don’t like the way she’s acted to you or Pink I don’t like it. But if you want me to go take orders from her, I’ll go. But it’s clearly understood, I’m doing it for you and you only.”
He turned stiffly and marched toward the door, running blindly into Johnny Parnell, giving no heed to Johnny’s badinage, and slamming the door after himself.
“O here you are, Jessie!” exclaimed Johnny, turning from staring after Fred. “Are you ready to start back for the ranch?”
Jessie, who all this time had been standing by the window, now looking out at the moonlit river, now studying Hugh’s head against the lamp light, buttoned her coat and came slowly forward.
“All ready, Johnny!”
“Just a minute, Jess! What’s all this about you and Mrs. Morgan planning to throw and hog-tie the Eastern Electric Corporation, Hughie? Are you honestly going to try to fight?”
“Yes, I am, Johnny. Are you with me or against me?”
For once, the young rider’s face was entirely serious. He looked from Jessie, now revealed in the full flare of the lamp glow, to Hugh, half turned from the desk.
“Hughie,” he said, “you and I might as well know how we stand. You and Jess both know how I feel about her. And I’ve always admired and liked you, Hughie. But since Miriam Page came out here, I tell you, my blood’s been boiling steadily. Not that I don’t wish the two of you would get a divorce and let me have a new chance to win Jessie. But to see you, Hughie, neglect a woman like Jessie, no matter what the circumstances are, makes me want to shoot you.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” insisted Hugh, “that after all our years of friendship, you are going to break away from me because I’ve been honest about Jessie and me?”
“I’m going to do more than break away from you,” answered Johnny. “As long as you take the attitude you do about Jessie, I’m going to work against you.”
“No, you aren’t, Johnny!” declared Jessie “I’ll not stand for it.”
“O I’m not afraid of anything Johnny can do to me.” Hugh lifted his chin. “I’m glad to know where he stands. But I think I ought to warn him that if I find I need him, I’ll whip him into line without compunctions.”
“Whip me into line!” cried Johnny angrily. “What gives you the idea that you can do that?”
“I’ve known you for thirty years. We were babies together. Before this war is over, I’ll have the men I need behind me.” Hugh spoke as if conscious of a power he never before had felt.
Johnny’s face was purple. “We’ll see! We’ll see! And in the meantime, I warn you that if I can break up you and Miriam Page, I’m going to do it. Not because I’m such a moral guy! But because there’s no chance of my getting Jessie, and I care enough about her to want her to have what she wants. Even if it’s a bloodless fossil like you.”
“I think this interview is about at an end, Johnny,” said Hugh, quietly.
“Then you and I agree on one point,” shouted the cowman, pulling on his gloves.
“Hughie hasn’t neglected me, Johnny,” said Jessie, suddenly. “At least all that has been mutual and more or less agreed upon.”
“Then why do you look the way you do?” demanded Johnny, sternly. “I got a right to know. Do you still love him?”
Both men watched Jessie keenly. She turned a little pale, but shrugged her shoulders as she answered indifferently, “Yes.”
Hugh jumped abruptly to his feet. “Wait a moment! I can’t be silent while you two put me in the wrong. I put in years trying to make Jessie a part of my life and she wouldn’t have it. And I’ve been perfectly open and honest with her about everything.”
“Yes, you have, Hughie!” Jessie’s eyes were deep and tragic, but her tone was carefully indolent. “I’ve been a fool and I’m paying for it. But, as I’ve told you before, I’m going to do my very best to keep you from throwing yourself away on a woman who isn’t big enough for you.”
“Big enough!” snorted Johnny, bitterly. “Big enough! What’s the idea? Bookie was a big man, but I never could get this stuff about Hughie’s throwing himself away, because he was too big for fossils. A man that ain’t strong enough to put himself where he belongs in the world, ain’t big, and that’s all there is about it.”
“Good heavens!” ejaculated Hugh, “forget it!— So you are against me too in this fight, Johnny?”
“Yes, I am,” replied the young rider, shortly. “I’ve gotta be. Come on, Jessie. It will be after midnight when we get home,” and the two left The Lariat in silence.
Hugh paced the floor for a time He was resentful, puzzled, angry and determined as he never before had been. And lonely. After all his years in Fort Sioux, the town, to his last boyhood friend, was against him.
Ever since Bookie’s death, Hugh had missed him poignantly and sincerely, but now the aching desire to turn to the wise old man in his trouble was almost unendurable. And, desiring Bookie so, he was suddenly impelled to read for the first time the old man’s will. The copy of it had lain in the bottom of the cash register ever since Judge Proctor had sent it to him. He spread it out on the desk and perused it several times. Then he replaced it, lighted his pipe and sat thoughtfully before the stove. He had been obeying the terms of the will as a discharge of a part of his deep indebtedness to his Uncle Bookie. And now he wondered if perchance he were not instead adding to his indebtedness. Anyhow, was it not possible that the two years in The Lariat were to teach him how to protect his work from the vandals of commercialism! It was past midnight when the guttering lamp wick sent him to bed.
The Committee on Conservation met in The Lariat about a week after Grafton’s first session with Hugh. It was not a large committee. Six women, all of them young except Mrs. Morgan, gathered in the book store on a brisk fall afternoon. They had come from little and big towns all over the huge state. After each of them had explained at length and in detail how she had disposed of her housework and her children for the period of her absence, the chairman called the committee to order. This done, Mrs. Morgan stated the purpose of the meeting.
“Ladies, one of the greatest fossil fields in the world lies in the neighborhood of Fort Sioux. It is threatened with destruction, and I asked your chairman to call you together that we might plan how to save it.”
A tall, tanned woman in a faded blue suit asked abruptly, “Why save it?”
“I’d rather have electricity in my house than the finest fossil ever exhumed,” said the member from the Jackson Hole country.
Mrs. Morgan turned to Hugh, who, decidedly embarrassed, was leaning against a bookcase.
“Hughie,” she said, briskly, “why save it?”
All eyes at once turned to the tall, melancholy figure which now moved from the book shelves to the old place before the counter. Hugh talked for half an hour, picturing in his inimitable way that strange dead life with which the Old Sioux Tract teemed. His audience was extraordinarily attentive to the end. He closed quite simply.
“You are asking why this life of the past is so valuable to the present. You all remember when the Germans overran Belgium and sacked the Library of Louvain. You all remember the wave of anger and violent protest that swept over the civilized world when the story of that ungenerous, that sacrilegious and futile destruction got abroad. And why should we have felt so keenly? Those books were only the dead records of a dead past. Ah, you say to me, man has developed from savagery only because of his capacity to keep records, records by which society could absorb all that had been done, in order to do more. Civilization, ladies, could not afford to lose the Library of Louvain. And we knew it.
“Neither can civilization afford to lose the Old Sioux Tract. It is, if you please, a sealed library of priceless manuscripts. These manuscripts may revolutionize our ideas on evolution, on religion, on the birth and growth and destiny of man. If I could succeed in letting the world know what the Old Sioux Tract is and what danger threatens it, the world would be more than indignant with the people of Wyoming. My plea to you is, help me to save this great state from an irretrievably stupid act.”
He paused, bowed awkwardly and went out. It was not until two hours had passed that he returned to find Mrs. Morgan waiting for him alone. She had deposited the committee in the Indian Massacre and was eager to make a report to Hugh.
“Well,” he asked, “what did they think of my speech?”
“Speech!” repeated his mother-in-law vaguely. “O they didn’t say much about it. They were much more interested in you than in what you said. As soon as you had gone out, Mrs. Ackroyd said, ‘My! hasn’t he a sad face! He really feels bad about it, poor thing.’ Mrs. Ames cut in with, ‘Didn’t he look interesting standing there with all the books and the fossils behind him? He thinks a lot of those stones, I can tell you.’ That stout woman who sat nearest the stove wanted to know how old you were and where Jessie was, and another one of them, I think it was Mrs. Friedland, said she’d heard a lot of gossip about you and women, but she knew it couldn’t be true, and she didn’t care if it was. But the last and best was what Mrs. Tanner said: ‘He’s suffering for Wyoming, that poor, dear thing! Girls, we’ve got to help him!’”
“Good Lord in heaven!” shouted Hugh. “Are they crazy? They absolutely failed to get the idea. I told you I couldn’t make a speech women would care about.”
“It was exactly the kind of a speech that I wanted you to make,” returned Mrs. Morgan. “It got your personality over to them. I’m perfectly delighted. And we got our program sketched out—that is, as far as their share is concerned.”
Hugh clasped both hands to his head and groaned. “What have I let myself in for!”
“Let me tell you the plans,” Mrs. Morgan went on, as if Hugh had not spoken.
Hugh looked at her. Irritation, admiration and protest struggled for a moment in his eyes, then with a sudden relaxing of his long body, he burst into a shout of laughter. Mrs. Morgan stared at him in astonishment.
“Don’t tell me the plans, please, Mrs. Morgan. I’ve changed my mind about wanting to know details,” said Hugh when he could speak. “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it I am a poor fool, but I can recognize a master hand in this.”
His mother-in-law considered his plea, then she said soberly, “I think you are right. I don’t want your mind cluttered up with details. Don’t come over to supper tonight. I’ll send you a tray here. You aren’t to mix with them familiarly, at all.”
Hugh laughed again as she trotted out the door. He had not felt so diverted since Miriam’s departure. “Uncle Bookie,” he said softly, “how you would have enjoyed this! I’d give a year of my life to have you here now!”
Two days later, the committee on the Children’s Code bill gathered in the book store. Hugh watched them as they came in and settled themselves in the chairs before the fire. It seemed to him that these women were quite another type from those who had composed the Conservation Committee. They were older and their conversation was centered on Governor Eli, who was asking for re-nomination to office. It struck Hugh that here was a group with whom he could get on. They were clean cut, efficient, and their knowledge of state politics was almost as startling to him as their scathing comments on the governor. He made the same speech to them that he had made to the Committee on Conservation. But when he had finished, they did not allow him to go out.
“How would you make the most money out of the Tract?” asked one of the women. “By selling it to the Eastern Electric Corporation, or by selling fossils off it?”
Hugh was staggered. He looked at the woman with such astonishment that she blushed to the roots of her white hair. “I didn’t mean to affront you, Mr. Stewart!” she exclaimed.
“I am a little affronted,” admitted Hugh. “It hadn’t occurred to me that any one could think I had any money interest in this.”
“I don’t know why we shouldn’t think so,” returned his questioner, stoutly. “You gave up fossils this last spring so as to inherit your uncle’s big property, didn’t you?”
Hugh set his teeth. This was the sort of thing a man who entered public life let himself in for! After a short struggle, which showed plainly in his face, he said:
“I don’t care to go into the reasons that led me to give two years to The Lariat. But I will say that if we can prevent the flooding of the Old Sioux Tract, I’ll make it over to the state of Wyoming as a perpetual fossil field.”
“Then what do you get out of this campaign?” asked another member.
“I get the satisfaction,” said Hugh, “of having saved something that is of immense value, though it can’t be measured in money.”
The chairman nodded, but said, turning to Mrs. Morgan, “All this is very interesting, Madam President, but I don’t see where this committee comes in.”
“Don’t you, Madam Chairman?” exclaimed Mrs. Morgan quickly. “Think! What have you to offer the women of this state to hold the solidarity you gained when the Children’s Code was lost?”
“I know all about that! But I certainly am not going to make myself a laughing stock by offering fossils in the place of children.”
Hugh turned from the women to stare out the window. An old Sioux was driving a herd of moth-eaten ponies toward the railroad corral. It was cold up on the plains, for a snow flurry was powdering the yellow top of the canyon wall. For a moment he did not hear what was being said by the women, for he was realizing with exceeding bitterness that once more he had failed to show how his work tied up with life.
He was roused by a question. “How did you stand on the Children’s Code, Mr. Stewart?”
“I was for it, of course.”
“Did you urge your assemblyman to vote for it?” asked the chairman. “Did you take any active interest in it?”
“No, I didn’t,” returned Hugh, frankly puzzled.
“Yet, you ask us to fight for something that’s of as little value to the state as fossils.”
“I didn’t understand that it was a swapping proposition,” said Hugh, stiffly.
“All politics is swapping,” returned the chairman.
“So is this, if you’d just use your brain to get the point,” cried Mrs. Morgan. “You need a man for the women to fasten to. Here’s a man who’s—” She was interrupted by Hugh. “I’d much prefer you’d drop the whole matter as far as this committee is concerned, Mrs. Morgan,” he said.
The chairman looked at him keenly. “A man that’s going into politics, Mr. Stewart, has to leave his dignity behind him.”
“I have no intention of going into politics,” replied Hugh. “I shall fight as best I can for this, but I certainly shall never be a politician,” and he picked up his hat and walked out, leaving the field to the women.
Nor did the astute Mrs. Morgan succeed in beguiling the Children’s Code Committee into taking Hugh’s troubles on as a substitute for the Code for which, politically speaking, they had fought, bled and died. She was puzzled but not discouraged.
“I ought to have known,” she said to Hugh that evening, “that they’d be too old and too experienced to fall for you as easily as the Conservation Committee did. I’m keeping 'em on here for a day or so, letting ’em wrangle over state politics, while I do more thinking.”
“Let them go,” urged Hugh, “and let me get to work with the men in power.”
“You don’t seem to understand, Hughie, that the Eastern Electric Corporation has money and we haven’t. And moreover, Mrs. Ellis, the chairman, has a brother on the Public Utilities Commission.”
Hugh sighed. “Well, what is their objection to helping me?”
“Just what they said yesterday. They don’t see any flesh and blood interest in fossils. Not that I expected them to! But I did think they’d see possibilities in you. But, you see, they all are women who’ve made their way up from the ranches and they don’t see things like they ought to. Not that they’d admit it. But I realize that, now that I've looked them over. The other committee was this new generation and they are softer. Don’t talk to me any more. I must think.”
And think she did, while Pink fled from the hotel and sought refuge in the barber shop. Hugh, in the meantime, walked the floor of The Lariat and debated the feasibility of casting off Mrs. Morgan and going up to Cheyenne to face the Public Utilities Commission alone. Grafton, he knew, was there now.
It was while the Children’s Code Committee was in session that he received a letter from Miriam in response to his to her telling of his trouble. She made no concrete suggestions save that he put his plan before the public himself. The letter was immensely heartening to Hugh. And so was a short visit paid him by Fred Allward.
Fred clumped into The Lariat the morning after Hugh’s speech before the Children’s Code Committee, wearing an airman’s outfit.
“Well, Hughie,” he said, “here I am, into it up to my forelock!”
“For heaven’s sake, Fred, what are you up to now?” demanded Hugh.
“You told me to take orders from her. She told me to go over to the air camp and get myself learnt to drive that airplane she’s bid in. Say, I hate her as much as ever, but she’s smart. You got to admit it. She said if I could drive mules and a jitney, I could drive an airplane. Say, Hughie, I feel like I was driving one of our big stone birds come to life. I’m to drive you when I get learnt.”
“Fred,” said Hugh, “I’ll trust you to dangle me at the end of a rope over a thousand-foot drop, and I’ll trust you to keep a team of ten wild mules in order. But I’ll be hanged if I’ll let you take me up in a plane.”
Fred looked hurt. “Doggone it, Hughie, don’t go and pie this idea of hers! It’s good. It’s advertising. She’s up to date, though I thank God I ain’t her husband.”
Hugh burst into sudden laughter. “All right, Fred! I’m glad you think we’re in good hands. When the government aviator tells me you are a full-fledged air man, I’ll go up with you.”
“That’s good!” Fred’s tone was mollified. “How do you like my outfit, Hughie? Got it from that little aviator, Marten. Takes about ten years off me, eh?”
“Yes, it does, Fred, and if you’d shave your beard, you’d lose ten years more.”
This was an old debate between the two, always much enjoyed by Hugh and much resented by Fred. But now, to Hugh’s vast amusement, the old miner felt his beard regretfully, sighed, walked out of The Lariat and headed for the barber shop.
Hugh avoided the members of the committee as best he could, but on the second day of the session in the Indian Massacre, Mrs. Ellis appeared in The Lariat. Hugh placed a chair for her before the fire and waited for her to speak. There was something he liked about this stout, gray-haired woman, although he felt her hostility to him.
“Mr. Stewart,” she said, abruptly, “we’re leaving tomorrow and I wanted to tell you myself why we’re turning down Mrs. Morgan’s proposition.”
“I don’t know what her proposition is, exactly,” Hugh spoke frankly. “I asked her not to tell me details.”
“That’s where you're a fool, then,” returned Mrs. Ellis with equal frankness. “She’s just as cold and unscrupulous as she is smart. I’ve told her that to her face. And that’s not saying she isn’t going to make the best president the federation ever had, because she is. Well, in so many words, she wants you to be our candidate for governor, and I don’t see it.”
“Good Lord!” shouted Hugh, “I should hope not! The woman is crazy!”
“No, she isn’t in the least.” Mrs. Ellis watched Hugh keenly. “But she can’t put this particular deal over with us.”
“She certainly can’t. Here, I’m going to bring her over here and settle that dream of hers, once and for all.” Hugh rose, but Mrs. Ellis leaned forward and put a plump hand on his wrist.
“Sit down, Mr. Stewart, and let’s you and me understand each other before any one else comes in on it.”
Hugh sat down again, his gray eyes smoldering. Mrs. Ellis went on, slowly, choosing her words with more and more care as Hugh’s beautiful mouth twitched more and more ominously.
“Mrs. Morgan’s proposition is, that if we make you governor, the Children’s Code will be enacted into law and administered exactly as we wish it to be administered. Have you ever read that code, Mr. Stewart?”
“No,” said Hugh, shortly.
“Well, it was prepared by the foremost specialists in this country; by people who are experts in the breeding, care and training of children; by people who have had years of experience in handling delinquent children and dependent children, normal and abnormal children, in educating children for self-support, for citizenship, for fatherhood and motherhood. Had it gone through, it would have made Wyoming the first state in the union in handling children. And in another generation or two, it would have produced a citizenry that no other state and no other nation could touch.”
The stout woman spoke with a clarity and vehemence that roused Hugh from his contemplation of himself. He listened attentively.
“And now,” she said, “your mother-in-law proposes that a man as one-sided as you, a childless and, I understand, a wifeless man, be put up to save a fossil field and by stealth, as it were, to put through this bill. You couldn’t do it. Why, I’d laugh if it wasn’t such a serious matter.”
“Serious to you or to me?” asked Hugh.
“To the state of Wyoming!” replied Mrs. Ellis sharply.
“You can put your mind at rest on that point, madam,” said Hugh. “I shall not be candidate for governor.”
“Let me tell you two things.” Mrs. Ellis was again watching Hugh’s face attentively. “One, you can save your fossil field only as governor. Politics absolutely control the natural resources of this state. Efforts at the Capitol have focused for years on water-power sites. There’s a big battle between state and federal control and it’s been expedient to concentrate more and more control in the governorship. You don’t know all this, Mrs. Morgan says. Fact number two—the women, for various reasons, will swing the next gubernatorial election, and Mrs. Morgan, because she is Mrs. Morgan and because she’s president of the Federation, probably could make you governor.”
“And what do you want me to do?” asked Hugh.
“I’m not making any suggestions to you,” answered the chairman of the Children’s Code Committee. “I’m merely telling you why I stand where I do. The man whom I shall back for governor must be a virile man, a man with fatherhood in his soul, an unselfish, social-minded human being in whom we could have absolute faith that he’d fight to the death for the Children’s Code.”
“Evidently, I don’t measure up,” said Hugh.
“You don’t believe yourself that you do, do you?” asked Mrs. Ellis, speaking gently for the first time.
Hugh looked from Mrs. Ellis’ plump, earnest face out to the far yellow field where an airplane reeled in drunken flight just above the sand. Something in his interlocutor’s eyes had brought back Uncle Bookie’s dying words: “Don’t make my mistake—for God’s sake, don’t! Give all—all.”
Hugh sighed deeply and turned back to Mrs. Ellis. “No,” slowly, “I can’t answer to that description.”
“It’s a great pity that you don’t!”
“It’s possible, isn’t it?” asked Hugh, sadly, “that I am valuable in my chosen field, and that my field may some day be as valuable to humanity as the Children’s Code?”
“You don’t really mean that, do you?”
Hugh was about to reply when Mrs. Morgan darted in, a little breathless, her eyes bright with curiosity.
“I hope I don’t interrupt!” she exclaimed.
“No,” replied Hugh, “because I want you to hear what I have to say to Mrs. Ellis.” He repeated his last question and Mrs. Ellis’ counter-query, and continued: “What I want to say is that while I would find it impossible to persuade myself to give up the fight for the Old Sioux Tract, I certainly do refuse to imperil the Children’s Code by allowing you, Mrs. Morgan, to use it as a pawn to manipulate me into the governorship”
“But you don’t refuse to be a candidate, do you?” cried Mrs. Morgan.
“Yes, I do refuse to be,” replied Hugh “I may not have fatherhood in my soul, but I do love this old state of Wyoming, and I do think the Children’s Code bill should not be imperiled by me or any other man with a one-track mind. I’ve made a big mistake in putting myself into your hands, Mrs. Morgan. I hadn’t realized what you would do with me.”
His mother-in-law turned bitterly to Mrs. Ellis. “What have you been saying? Now, I’ve got all my work to do over!”
“I’ve merely told him facts,” said Mrs. Ellis, rising. “A trifling job that you neglected.”
“May I ask,” snapped Mrs. Morgan, “who your candidate for governor is going to be?”
“I haven’t any idea who he’ll be, Mrs. Morgan, but it won’t be some one who’ll sell his brain to you, sight unseen.”
Hugh had risen, too. “I haven’t done that, Mrs. Ellis,” he said, quietly.
“Not intentionally, I believe, after this talk with you,” she said. “But it’s a great pity that a man with a spirit and a personality like yours should let himself be so entirely hipped on one idea that he seems to lack qualities he probably possesses,” and she left the shop, followed by Mrs. Morgan in violent eruption.
It was not yet midafternoon, but after a moment’s hesitation Hugh put on his mackinaw and spurs and, locking the door behind him, hastened over to the hotel corral, where he saddled and mounted Fossil. Then he rode slowly down the sandy street.