Marching Men

g in the sun on Main Street. From the coke ovens a thin line of smoke rose into the sky. A freight train heavily loaded crept round the hill at the end of the valley. It was

reached even into the miner's cabin and the merchants along Main Street of Coal Creek stood before their stores in the afternoon and talked of the doings of the world. Beaut McGregor knew that life in his town was exceptional, that not everywhere d

confoundedly funny. They don't care for anything but making foolish jokes and getting drunk. I want to go away." His voice rose and hatred flame

ell-dressed black-haired boy with rings on his fingers who worked in the town poolroom, r

tened his tie and began thinking of a conversation he would start when the women reached him. Beaut and the other boy, a fat fellow, the son of a

ing over the fallen logs, coming to them. The two young girls followed, laughing. They sat down on the log beside the boys, the tall pale woman at the end beside red-haired

ant to get away from here," she said, "I wish I

the logs and the pale woman followed. The fat boy shouted at them, relieving his own

tall woman walked beside him and held her skirts out of the deep dust of the road. Even on

th a woman. When she had tired from the climb he sat with her on a log beside the road and talked

gainst her side and closed her eyes

. The desire to tease her about the black-haired boy had passed and he wished he had said nothing about the ring. He rememb

nt down the hill. The men sat upon boards laid across the box of a wagon and sang a song. One of them stood in the seat beside the driver a

t them. McGregor thought he had never had so delightful a companion. He got a feeling of complete, good fellowship and friendliness with this woman. With

her in the evening standing in the stairway by the shop door. After the story told him by the black-haired boy he had be

man took off her hat and laid it beside her on the log. A faint colour mounted to her pale cheeks and a flash of anger gleamed in her eyes. "He probably lied to you about me," she said, "I didn't give him tha

that an unnecessary fuss was being made about it. He did not believe

and called him 'Cracked.' They thought his running into the mine just a crazy notion like a horse that runs into a burning stable. He was the best man in

his father and described the effect of the scene on himself

groom quieting an excitable horse. "Don't mind them," she said, "you wi

respect for her came over him. "She

. A thought that had been in his mind on the winter day when Uncle Charlie Wheeler put the name of Beaut upon him came back and he

he struggled for words. "Oh to Hell with men!" he burst forth. "They are cattle, stupid cattle." A fire blazed up in his eyes and a confident ring came into his voice. "I'd like to get them together, all

When I see it I'm filled with the notion. I think I want to be a farmer and work in the fields. Instead of that mother and I sit and pla

dust in your red hair and perhaps a red beard growing on your chin. And a woman with a baby in her arms would come out of the kitchen door to stand leaning on the fence waiting for you

hold of her hand and kiss her then and there. He got up and looked at the sun going down behind

good for you to hear. You're so big and red you tempt a girl to bother you. First though you tell

what the black-haired boy had told him of her. "

in her turn and beginning to p

thering each other," he said. "Let's sit here unt

alking, boasting of herself a

etty well. I don't have any one to talk to except father and he sits all evening reading a paper and going to sleep in his chair. If I let boys co

woman who stirred him up and then talked harshly like the women at the back doors in Coal Creek. He thought again as he had thought before that h

ome. Again she put her hand to her side and again he wished to put his hand at her back

lighted the sky. "One living up here and never going down there might think it rather grand and big," he said. Again

might be friends if we tried. You have got something in you. You attract women. I've heard others say that. Your father was that way. Most of the women here would rather have been the

eing you standing in the stairway and thinking you had been doing as you pleased. I thought maybe you amounted to something. I don't know why you should be bothered by what I thin

go down the hill. "I'm quite a fellow to have talked to her all afternoo