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“Quick as the camps close. I don’t have a minute away from the store till then,” said Pa. “You know that.”
“Yes, I know, Charles. What did they do about the men that—killed the paymaster?”
“They didn’t kill him,” Pa said. “It was this way. You see, it’s the same at Stebbins’ camp as here; the office is a lean-to at the back of the store. It has one door into the store and that’s all. The paymaster stayed in the office with the money and kept the door locked. He paid the men through a little opening beside the door.
“Stebbins has got over three hundred and fifty men drawing pay there, and they wanted their pay up to now, like the men here wanted it. When they got paid only to the fifteenth, they acted ugly. Most of them wear guns, and they were in the store, threatening to shoot up the place unless they got their full pay.
“In the melee, a couple of men got to quarreling and one of them hit the other over the head with the weight from the scales. He dropped like a struck ox, and when they dragged him out into the air they couldn’t bring him back to his senses.
“So the crowd started out with a rope, after the man that hit him. They trailed him easy enough into the slough, and then they couldn’t find him in the high grass. They threshed around looking for him through that slough grass taller than their heads, till I guess they’d ruined any trail he’d left.
“They kept on hunting him till past noon, and lucky for him they didn’t find him. When they got back to the store, the door was locked. They couldn’t get in. Somebody had loaded the hurt man into a wagon and headed back east to look for a doctor.
“By this time men were piling into the place from all the other camps. They ate everything they could get hold of in the boarding shanty and most of them were drinking. They kept pounding on the store door and yelling to the paymaster to open up and pay them, but nobody answered.
“A crowd of near a thousand drunken men is an ugly thing to deal with. Somebody caught sight of that rope and shouted, ‘Hang the paymaster!’ The whole crowd took it up and kept on yelling, ‘Hang him! Hang him!’
“A couple of men got on top of the lean-to roof and tore a hole in the shingles. They left the end of the rope dangling over the edge of the roof and the crowd grabbed hold of it. The two fellows dropped down onto the paymaster and got the noose around his neck.”
“Stop, Charles. The girls are awake,” said Ma.
“Pshaw, that’s all there is to it,” Pa said. “They hauled him up once or twice, is all. He gave in.”
“They didn’t hang him?”
“Not enough to hurt much. Some of the crowd was breaking down the store door with neckyokes, and the storekeeper opened it. One of the fellows in the office cut the rope and let the paymaster down, and opened up the pay-window and the paymaster paid every man what he claimed was due him. A good many men from the other camps crowded in and drew pay, too. There wasn’t any bothering with time-checks.”
“Shame on him!” Laura cried out. Pa drew back the curtain. “What did he do it for? I wouldn’t! I wouldn’t!” she went on, before Pa or Ma could say a word. There she was, sitting up on her knees in bed, her fists clenched.
“You wouldn’t what?” said Pa.
“Pay them! They couldn’t make me! They didn’t make you!”
“That mob was bigger than ours. And the paymaster didn’t have Big Jerry to help him,” said Pa.
“But you wouldn’t have, Pa,” Laura said.
“Sh!” Ma hushed them. “You’ll wake Grace. I’m thankful the paymas
ter was sensible. Better a live dog than a dead lion.”
“Oh, no, Ma! You don’t mean that!” Laura whispered.
“Anyway, discretion is the better part of valor. You girls go to sleep,” Ma murmured.
“Please, Ma,” Mary whispered. “How could he pay them? Where did he get the money, when he’d already paid out what he had?”
“That’s so, where did he?” Ma asked.
“From the store. It’s a big store and it had already taken in most of what the men had been paid; they spend as fast as they get,” said Pa. “Now mind your Ma, girls, and go to sleep.” He let the curtain fall.
Very softly under the quilt Mary and Laura talked until Ma blew out the lamp. Mary said she wanted to go back to Plum Creek. Laura did not answer that. She liked to feel the great wild prairie all around the little shanty. Her heart beat strong and fast; she could hear in her mind again the savage fierce sound of that crowd’s growl and Pa’s cold voice saying, “Don’t crowd too close.” And she remembered the sweating men and sweating horses moving strongly through clouds of dust, building the railroad in a kind of song. She did not want ever to go back to Plum Creek.
Chapter 12
Wings Over Silver Lake
The weather grew colder and the sky was full of wings and great birds flying. From east to west, from north to south, and as far up into the blue sky as eyes could see, were birds and birds and birds sailing on beating wings.
