The Game And The Nation--Last Act
It has happened to you, has it not, to wake in the morning and wonder for a while where
on earth you are? Thus I came half to life in the caboose, hearing voices, but not the
actual words at first.
But presently, "Hathaway!" said some one more clearly. "Portland 1291!"
This made no special stir in my intelligence, and I drowsed off again to the pleasant
rhythm of the wheels. The little shock of stopping next brought me to, somewhat, with
the voices still round me; and when we were again in motion, I heard: "Rosebud!
Portland 1279!" These figures jarred me awake, and I said, "It was 1291 before," and sat
up in my blankets.
The greeting they vouchsafed and the sight of them clustering expressionless in the
caboose brought last evening's uncomfortable memory back to me. Our next stop
revealed how things were going to-day.
"Forsythe," one of them read on the station. "Portland 1266."
They were counting the lessening distance westward. This was the undercurrent of war. It
broke on me as I procured fresh water at Forsythe and made some toilet in their stolid
presence. We were drawing nearer the Rawhide station--the point, I mean, where you left
the railway for the new mines. Now Rawhide station lay this side of Billings. The broad
path of desertion would open ready for their feet when the narrow path to duty and Sunk
Creek was still some fifty miles more to wait. Here was Trampas's great strength; he need
make no move meanwhile, but lie low for the immediate temptation to front and waylay
them and win his battle over the deputy foreman. But the Virginian seemed to find
nothing save enjoyment in this sunny September morning, and ate his breakfast at
Forsythe serenely.
That meal done and that station gone, our caboose took up again its easy trundle by the
banks of the Yellowstone. The mutineers sat for a while digesting in idleness.
"What's your scar?" inquired one at length inspecting casually the neck of his neighbor.
"Foolishness," the other answered.
"Well, I don't know but I prefer to have myself to thank for a thing," said the first.
