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Updated: May 24, 2025
One wag announced that the section-boss was mired in some alkali mud-hole; another, that he had been bitten by a polecat; a third composed some doggerel lines in which Lancaster was described as having gone "over the range." Notwithstanding this, the troopers had deep sympathy for the bereaved girls.
In twenty minutes he called to the manager, "The break is two miles below Poughkeepsie I've ordered the section-boss at Poughkeepsie to take a repairer on his handcar and go and fix it!" Of course, this plain telegraph-operator had no right to order out a section-boss; but nevertheless he did it. He shouldered responsibility like Tom Potter of the C., B. & Q.
When Dallas and Squaw Charley were gone, the section-boss and his younger daughter were, for a space, tongue-tied through a lack of something to say. Soon, however, David Bond broke the quiet to assure Lancaster of his gratitude. And thereafter the two men talked freely.
She advanced relentingly as her father came up behind. "W'y a stranger?" cried the section-boss. She stopped him. "Yes, but we wouldn't turn a dog away to-night, dad." She motioned David Bond to enter. As he crossed the sill, Dallas, for the first time, caught a glimpse of the white horse and the pung, and saw Squaw Charley lifting his load of chips from the wagon-box.
That night, when all was ready, and Dallas and her father, having given the team a late feed, were leaving the stable together, she spoke to him of her sister. "There's just one thing that worries me about your leaving," she said. "I don't know if you've noticed it or not, but Marylyn don't seem to be feeling good." "Y' think mebbe she takes after her ma?" ventured the section-boss.
"W'y, Lawd!" breathed the section-boss, realising the whole import of the news. A railroad would mean immeasurable good fortune to the trio of settlers who, like young prairie-chickens that fear to leave the side of their mother, had chosen quarter-sections near the guarding fort. And to him, penniless, with motherless girls, it meant "The ferrying's so good right here," went on the storekeeper.
As he had said, there were no prints of an Indian shoe in the soft earth. But mingling with the round, faint marks of his own naked heel were those more plainly stamped of a large boot. They led up to the spot from the nearest point on the river; and back upon themselves toward the same point. "W'at'd Ah tell y'?" demanded the section-boss, almost triumphantly.
And now he was for no man's help, but for a vengeance wreaked with his own gun. Hurling a final defy toward Shanty Town, he disappeared behind the partition. No breakfast was eaten that morning. The section-boss was too angry to taste of food, Marylyn was too frightened, and Dallas had no time. For she was busy with the mules, currying them and putting them before the wagon.
When Marylyn turned from the tea that now partially eased her hunger, and began a demand for food, Simon would die. It came sooner than the section-boss expected. His lethargic sleep was broken by Dallas' shaking him. As he opened his eyes, she thrust the hatchet into his hands. "Dad," she said hurriedly. "Get up. You got to do it. For Marylyn for Marylyn." To him, it was a real victory.
"Why, it's a ten-to-one shot the track'll end on your claim." With one accord all looked across the level quarter, where the new green was creeping in after the late rains. "A railroad! An' a town!" The section-boss pulled at his grizzled goatee. "They'll make this piece worth a heap!" "They will," agreed Lounsbury.
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