Scipio Moralizes

: The Virginian

Into what mood was it that the Virginian now fell? Being less busy,

did he begin to "grieve" about the girl on Bear Creek? I only know

that after talking so lengthily he fell into a nine days' silence. The

talking part of him deeply and unbrokenly slept.



Official words of course came from him as we rode southward from the

railroad, gathering the Judge's stray cattle. During the many weeks

since the spring
round-up, some of these animals had as usual got

very far off their range, and getting them on again became the present

business of our party.



Directions and commands--whatever communications to his subordinates

were needful to the forwarding of this--he duly gave. But routine has

never at any time of the world passed for conversation. His utterances,

such as, "We'll work Willo' Creek to-morro' mawnin'," or, "I want the

wagon to be at the fawks o' Stinkin' Water by Thursday," though on some

occasions numerous enough to sound like discourse, never once broke the

man's true silence. Seeming to keep easy company with the camp, he yet

kept altogether to himself. That talking part of him--the mood which

brings out for you your friend's spirit and mind as a free gift or as an

exchange--was down in some dark cave of his nature, hidden away. Perhaps

it had been dreaming; perhaps completely reposing. The Virginian was one

of those rare ones who are able to refresh themselves in sections. To

have a thing on his mind did not keep his body from resting. During our

recent journey--it felt years ago now!--while our caboose on the freight

train had trundled endlessly westward, and the men were on the ragged

edge, the very jumping-off place, of mutiny and possible murder, I had

seen him sleep like a child. He snatched the moments not necessary for

vigil. I had also seen him sit all night watching his responsibility,

ready to spring on it and fasten his teeth in it. And now that he had

confounded them with their own attempted weapon of ridicule, his powers

seemed to be profoundly dormant. That final pitched battle of wits had

made the men his captives and admirers--all save Trampas. And of him the

Virginian did not seem to be aware.



But Scipio le Moyne would say to me now and then, "If I was Trampas, I'd

pull my freight." And once he added, "Pull it kind of casual, yu' know,

like I wasn't noticing myself do it."



"Yes," our friend Shorty murmured pregnantly, with his eye upon the

quiet Virginian, "he's sure studying his revenge."



"Studying your pussy-cat," said Scipio. "He knows what he'll do. The

time 'ain't arrived." This was the way they felt about it; and not

unnaturally this was the way they made me, the inexperienced Easterner,

feel about it. That Trampas also felt something about it was easy

to know. Like the leaven which leavens the whole lump, one spot of

sulkiness in camp will spread its dull flavor through any company that

sits near it; and we had to sit near Trampas at meals for nine days.



His sullenness was not wonderful. To feel himself forsaken by his recent

adherents, to see them gone over to his enemy, could not have made

his reflections pleasant. Why he did not take himself off to other

climes--"pull his freight casual," as Scipio said--I can explain only

thus: pay was due him--"time," as it was called in cow-land; if he would

have this money, he must stay under the Virginian's command until the

Judge's ranch on Sunk Creek should be reached; meanwhile, each day's

work added to the wages in store for him; and finally, once at Sunk

Creek, it would be no more the Virginian who commanded him; it would be

the real ranch foreman. At the ranch he would be the Virginian's equal

again, both of them taking orders from their officially recognized

superior, this foreman. Shorty's word about "revenge" seemed to me

like putting the thing backwards. Revenge, as I told Scipio, was what I

should be thinking about if I were Trampas.



"He dassent," was Scipio's immediate view. "Not till he's got strong

again. He got laughed plumb sick by the bystanders, and whatever spirit

he had was broke in the presence of us all. He'll have to recuperate."

Scipio then spoke of the Virginian's attitude. "Maybe revenge ain't just

the right word for where this affair has got to now with him. When yu'

beat another man at his own game like he done to Trampas, why, yu've had

all the revenge yu' can want, unless you're a hog. And he's no hog. But

he has got it in for Trampas. They've not reckoned to a finish. Would

you let a man try such spite-work on you and quit thinkin' about him

just because yu'd headed him off?" To this I offered his own notion

about hogs and being satisfied. "Hogs!" went on Scipio, in a way that

dashed my suggestion to pieces; "hogs ain't in the case. He's got to

deal with Trampas somehow--man to man. Trampas and him can't stay this

way when they get back and go workin' same as they worked before. No,

sir; I've seen his eye twice, and I know he's goin' to reckon to a

finish."



I still must, in Scipio's opinion, have been slow to understand, when on

the afternoon following this talk I invited him to tell me what sort

of "finish" he wanted, after such a finishing as had been dealt Trampas

already. Getting "laughed plumb sick by the bystanders" (I borrowed his

own not overstated expression) seemed to me a highly final finishing.

While I was running my notions off to him, Scipio rose, and, with the

frying-pan he had been washing, walked slowly at me.



"I do believe you'd oughtn't to be let travel alone the way you do."

He put his face close to mine. His long nose grew eloquent in its

shrewdness, while the fire in his bleached blue eye burned with amiable

satire. "What has come and gone between them two has only settled the

one point he was aimin' to make. He was appointed boss of this outfit in

the absence of the regular foreman. Since then all he has been playin'

for is to hand back his men to the ranch in as good shape as they'd been

handed to him, and without losing any on the road through desertion or

shooting or what not. He had to kick his cook off the train that day,

and the loss made him sorrowful, I could see. But I'd happened to come

along, and he jumped me into the vacancy, and I expect he is pretty near

consoled. And as boss of the outfit he beat Trampas, who was settin' up

for opposition boss. And the outfit is better than satisfied it come out

that way, and they're stayin' with him; and he'll hand them all back in

good condition, barrin' that lost cook. So for the present his point is

made, yu' see. But look ahead a little. It may not be so very far ahead

yu'll have to look. We get back to the ranch. He's not boss there any

more. His responsibility is over. He is just one of us again, taking

orders from a foreman they tell me has showed partiality to Trampas

more'n a few times. Partiality! That's what Trampas is plainly trusting

to. Trusting it will fix him all right and fix his enemy all wrong.

He'd not otherwise dare to keep sour like he's doing. Partiality! D' yu'

think it'll scare off the enemy?" Scipio looked across a little creek

to where the Virginian was helping throw the gathered cattle on the

bedground. "What odds"--he pointed the frying-pan at the Southerner--"d'

yu' figure Trampas's being under any foreman's wing will make to a man

like him? He's going to remember Mr. Trampas and his spite-work if he's

got to tear him out from under the wing, and maybe tear off the wing in

the operation. And I am goin' to advise your folks," ended the complete

Scipio, "not to leave you travel so much alone--not till you've learned

more life."



He had made me feel my inexperience, convinced me of innocence,

undoubtedly; and during the final days of our journey I no longer

invoked his aid to my reflections upon this especial topic: What would

the Virginian do to Trampas? Would it be another intellectual crushing

of him, like the frog story, or would there be something this time more

material--say muscle, or possibly gunpowder--in it? And was Scipio,

after all, infallible? I didn't pretend to understand the Virginian;

after several years' knowledge of him he remained utterly beyond me.

Scipio's experience was not yet three weeks long. So I let him alone as

to all this, discussing with him most other things good and evil in

the world, and being convinced of much further innocence; for Scipio's

twenty odd years were indeed a library of life. I have never met a

better heart, a shrewder wit, and looser morals, with yet a native sense

of decency and duty somewhere hard and fast enshrined.



But all the while I was wondering about the Virginian: eating with him,

sleeping with him (only not so sound as he did), and riding beside him

often for many hours.



Experiments in conversation I did make--and failed. One day particularly

while, after a sudden storm of hail had chilled the earth numb and white

like winter in fifteen minutes, we sat drying and warming ourselves by

a fire that we built, I touched upon that theme of equality on which I

knew him to hold opinions as strong as mine. "Oh," he would reply, and

"Cert'nly"; and when I asked him what it was in a man that made him a

leader of men, he shook his head and puffed his pipe. So then, noticing

how the sun had brought the earth in half an hour back from winter to

summer again, I spoke of our American climate.



It was a potent drug, I said, for millions to be swallowing every day.



"Yes," said he, wiping the damp from his Winchester rifle.



Our American climate, I said, had worked remarkable changes, at least.



"Yes," he said; and did not ask what they were.



So I had to tell him. "It has made successful politicians of the Irish.

That's one. And it has given our whole race the habit of poker."



Bang went his Winchester. The bullet struck close to my left. I sat up

angrily.



"That's the first foolish thing I ever saw you do!" I said.



"Yes," he drawled slowly, "I'd ought to have done it sooner. He was

pretty near lively again." And then he picked up a rattlesnake six feet

behind me. It had been numbed by the hail, part revived by the sun, and

he had shot its head off.



More

;