IFIRST IMPRESSIONS
Table of Contents
When our train left Colorado Springs and headed out into those vast stretches of the prairie, which spread East like a great green ocean from the foot of Pikes Peak, all the sensations of Christopher Columbus setting sail for a new world, and a few peculiarly my own, mingled in my breast.
As the train pounded along I stole a look at Owen. He was absorbed in the contemplation of a map of our new holdings. Under that calm exterior I suspected hidden attributes of the primitive man. Certainly there was some reason why Western life was to his liking, having had the chance to choose.
It was late in the afternoon when we found ourselves on the platform of the solitary little wayside station. The train went rushing on through the July sunshine, as if impatient at the stop. Our fellow passengers had drawn their heads back from the car windows, after vainly trying to see what apparently sane people could find to stop for in a place like that. In truth, there was littlea water tank, a section house, two cottages and one store.
A combination station-agent and baggage-man stood on the platform. Near a hitching rack a tall individual was waving his long arms about like a windmill as he beckoned us to approach. Owen picked up the bags; I trudged along behind with various coats and packages, stopping midway between platform and wagon to disengage a large tumbleweed, which had rolled merrily to my feet and attached itself to my skirt.
The tall man took a few steps in our direction, still holding the reins in his hand. With one eye he gave us a greeting, while he kept the other on the lunging horses. He was hardly a prepossessing person at first sight, except for his smile. I felt that his keen black eyes had sized us up in one quick glance. I became blushingly conscious of being a new bride, and from the East.
How-de-do? Whoa, now, Brownie. Just get in folks,the old man had to go to town, so he sent me to meet you, but hell be back by the time we get to the ranch. All this in one breath, while he helped Owen place the bags in the wagon.
Dont mind the horses; theyre plumb gentlejust a little excited now over the train, thats all. Whoa now, with decided emphasis. Sorry, Mrs. Brook, hope you didnt hurt yourselfthis last as the horses suddenly backed and knocked my foot off the step. Oh, no, not at all, I replied, hastily scrambling into the wagon and thanking heaven that I had landed on the seat before they gave an unexpected lurch forward. Owen got in beside the driver; the horses reared and started off. I gripped the seat and my hat, and fastened my eyes on the horses ears. When we had crossed the railroad and the movement was more steady, I began to take notice of things about me, and the conversation going on in the front seat reached me in fragments.
The driver said he was called Tex. He was a true son of Texas, and it was not difficult to imagine that particles of his native soil still clung to him. The deep creases in his neck were so filled with dirt that he looked like a charcoal sketch. As he turned his face, lined and seamed, I saw that his chin was covered with at least a weeks growth of greyish-black beard. I estimated his age. He might have been fifty; very quick in speech and action, yet there was a subdued power about the man. He managed the horses easily, and I caught in his drawling speech a casual, half-bantering tone.
Wonder if them grips is botherin the Missus. Ridin all right? he asked, turning with solicitude to see the location of the bags. As it happened, they were all located on top of my feet. It was Owen who removed them, for Texs attention was again engaged with Brownie, who suddenly landed quite outside the road. A cotton-tail had jumped from behind a rattleweed.
Quit that now, Brownie. You never did have no sense. The drawl was half-sarcastic. Pears like you aint never seen no rabbits before, stead a bein raised with em. Brownie gave a little shake of her pretty head and crowded her long-suffering mate back into the road again. I was becoming very much interested. This man was a distinctly new type to me. I did not know then that he was the old-time cow-puncher, with an ease of manner a Chesterfield might have envied, and an unfailing, almost deferential, courtesy toward women.
Never shall I forget that first drive across the prairie,not a house, not a tree in sight, except where the cottonwoods traced the borders of a waterless creek. Gently rolling hills were all about us, instead of the flat country I had expected to see; hills which failed to reveal anything when we reached the top, but yet higher hills to climb. An unexpected vastness seemed to extend to the very boundaries of the unknown, as we looked about on all sides, only to see the soft green circle of the hills, on which the bluest of skies gently rested, sweep about us. I felt the spell of unlimited space, and smiled as I thought of the tearful farewell of one of my bridesmaids. She had hated to think of my being cooped up on a ranch. Cooped up here, when for the first time I realized what unhampered freedom might mean in a country left as God had made it, with so little trace of mans interference!
At last we came to a gate made of three strands of barbed wire, fastened together in the middle and attached to a stick at each end. It was a real gate when up, but when opened, it was a floppy invention of the Evil One, designed to tax the patience of a saint. The strands of wire got mixed and crossed and grew perceptibly shorter, so that it required superhuman strength and something of a disposition to get the end of the stick through the loop of wire, which held it in place again.
This gate marked the Southern boundary of the ranch, ten miles from the railroad station. We reached the top of a hill and looked up a long valley, where the creek wound its way, fringed by great cottonwood trees, until its source was lost behind three prominent buttes, purple in the haze of the late afternoon. Beyond the buttes stood Pikes Peak, snow-capped and alone, guardian of the valley, the whole length of which it commanded. Through some peculiarity of position all the other peaks of the Rockies remained invisible, while this one mountain rose in majestic isolation from the plain.
Tex stopped the horses for a moment, and without a word pointed with the whip toward a clump of cottonwoods in the distance.
The ranch? I asked.
He nodded.
In the beautiful valley it stood, the white fences, corrals and outbuildings gleaming in the sun. Nestled among the trees, planted so densely that only a suggestion of its white walls showed between them, was the houseour first home!
As we drove up to the gate, a short man, with a thick beard, bustled out to meet us.
Well, here you are! Got here all right. Sorry I couldnt meet you. Come right in. You must be tired settin. And before we quite realized that we had arrived, we were ushered into the house through the back door.
As a matter of fact, there was no front door. Two outside doors opened into the kitchen, one on either side, and since the kitchen was in truth the living-room, what need of a front door?
