The Girl of the Golden West (14 page)

"Oh, Lord, here he is!" she cried, panic-stricken, and began to
drag herself hurriedly across the room with the intention of
concealing herself behind the curtain at the foot of the bed; while
Wowkle, with unusual celerity, made for the fire-place, where she
stood with her back to the door, gazing into the fire.

The Girl had only gotten half-way across the room, however, when
a voice assailed her ears.

"Miss, Miss, kin I—" came in low, subdued tones.

"What? The Sidney Duck?" she cried, turning and seeing his head
poked through the window.

"Beg pardon, Miss; I know men ain't lowed up here nohow," humbly
apologised that individual; "but, but—"

Vexed and flustered, the Girl turned upon him a trifle irritably
with:

"Git! Git, I tell you!"

"But I'm in grite trouble, Miss," began The Sidney Duck,
tearfully. "The boys are back—they missed that road agent Ramerrez
and now they're taking it out of me. If—if you'd only speak a word
for me, Miss."

"No—" began the Girl, and stopped. The next instant she ordered
Wowkle to shut the window.

"Oh, don't be 'ard on me, Miss," whimpered the man.

The Girl flashed him a scornful look.

"Now, look here, Sidney Duck, there's one kind o' man I can't
stand, an' that's a cheat an' a thief, an' you're it," said the
Girl, laying great stress upon her words. "You're no better'n that
road agent Ramerrez, an'—"

"But, Miss—" interrupted the man.

"Miss nothin'!" snapped back the Girl, tugging away at the
slippers; in desperation once more she ordered:

"Wowkle, close the winder! Close the winder!"

The Sidney Duck glowered at her. He had expected her
intercession on his behalf and could not understand this new
attitude of hers toward him.

"Public 'ouse jide!" he retorted furiously, and slammed the
window.

"Ugh!" snarled Wowkle, resentfully, her eyes full of fire.

Now at any other time, The Sidney Duck would have been made to
pay dearly for his words, but either the Girl did not hear him, or
if she did she was too engrossed to heed them; at any rate, the
remark passed unnoticed.

"I got it on!" presently exclaimed the Girl in great joy.
Nevertheless, it was not without several ouches and moans that,
finally, she stood upon her feet. "Say, Wowkle, how do you think
he'll like 'em? How do they look? They feel awful!" she rattled on
with a pained look on her face.

But whatever would have been the Indian woman's observation on
the subject of tight shoes in general and those of her mistress in
particular, she was not permitted to make it, for the Girl, now
hobbling over towards the bureau, went on to announce with sudden
determination:

"Say, Wowkle, I'm a-goin' the whole hog! Yes, I'm a-goin' the
whole hog," she repeated a moment later, as she drew forth various
bits of finery from a chest of drawers, with which she proceeded to
adorn herself before the mirror. Taking out first a lace shawl of
bold design, she drew it over her shoulders with the grace and ease
of one who makes it an everyday affair rather than an occasional
undertaking; then she took from a sweet-grass basket a
vividly-embroidered handkerchief and saturated it with cologne,
impregnating the whole room with its strong odour; finally she
brought forth a pair of long, white gloves and began to stretch
them on. "Does it look like an effort, Wowkle?" she asked, trying
to get her hands into them.

"Ugh!" was the Indian woman's comment at the very moment that a
knock came upon the door. "Two plates," she added with a groan, and
started for the cupboard.

Meanwhile the Girl continued with her primping and preening, her
hands flying back and forth like an automaton from her waist-line
to her stockings. Suddenly another knock, this time more vigorous,
more insistent, came upon the rough boards of the cabin door,
which, finally, was answered by the Girl herself.

"Hello!" sang out Johnson, genially, as he entered the Girl's
cabin.

At once the Girl's audacity and spirit deserted her, and hanging
her head she answered meekly, bashfully:

"Hello!"

The man's eyes swept the Girl's figure; he looked puzzled, and
asked:

"Are you—you going out?"

The Girl was plainly embarrassed; she stammered in reply:

"Yes—no—I don't know—Oh, come on in!"

"Thank you," said Johnson in his best manner, and put down his
lantern on the table. Turning now with a look of admiration in his
eyes, at the same time trying to embrace her, he went on: "Oh,
Girl, I'm so glad you let me come…"

His glance, his tone, his familiarity sent the colour flying to
the Girl's cheeks; she flared up instantly, her blue eyes snapping
with resentment:

"You stop where you are, Mr. Johnson."

"Ugh!" came from Wowkle, at that moment closing the door which
Johnson had left ajar.

At the sound of the woman's voice Johnson wheeled round quickly.
And then, to his great surprise, he saw that the Girl was not alone
as he had expected to find her.

"I beg your pardon; I did not see anyone when I came in," he
said in humble apology, his eyes the while upon Wowkle who, having
blown out the candle and removed the lantern from the table to the
floor, was directing her footsteps towards the cupboard, into which
she presently disappeared, closing the door behind her. "But seeing
you standing there," went on Johnson in explanation, "and looking
into your lovely eyes, well, the temptation to take you in my arms
was so great that I, well, I took—"

"You must be in the habit o' takin' things, Mr. Johnson," broke
in the Girl. "I seen you on the road to Monterey, goin' an' comin',
an' passed a few words with you; I seen you once since, but that
don't give you no excuse to begin this sort o' game." The Girl's
tone was one of reproach rather than of annoyance, and for the
moment the young man was left with a sense of having committed an
indiscretion. Silently, sheepishly, he moved away, while she
quietly went over to the fire.

"Besides, you might have prospected a bit first anyway,"
presently she went on, watching the tips of her slender white
fingers held out transparent towards the fire.

Just at that moment a log dropped, turning up its glowing
underside. Wheeling round with a smile, Johnson said:

"I see how wrong I was."

And then, seeing that the Girl made no move in his direction, he
asked, still smiling:

"May I take off my coat?"

The Girl remained silent, which silence he interpreted as an
assent, and went on to make himself at home.

"Thank you," he said simply. "What a bully little place you have
here! It's awfully snug!" he continued delightedly, as his eyes
wandered about the room. "And to think that I've found you again
when I—Oh, the luck of it!"

He went over to her and held out his hands, a broad, yet kindly
smile lighting up his strong features, making him appear handsomer,
even, than he really was, to the Girl taking in the olive-coloured
skin glowing with healthful pallor.

"Friends?" he asked.

Nevertheless the girl did not give him her hand, but quickly
drew it away; she answered his question with a question:

"Are you sorry?"

"No, I'm not sorry."

To this she made no reply but quietly, disappointedly returned
to the fireplace, where she stood in contemplative silence, waiting
for his next words.

But he did not speak; he contented himself with gazing at the
tender girlishness of her, the blue-black eyes, and flesh that was
so bright and pure that he knew it to be soft and firm, making him
yearn for her.

Involuntarily she turned towards him, and she saw that in his
face which caused her eyes to drop and her breath to come more
quickly.

"That damme style just catches a woman!" she ejaculated with a
little tremour in her voice.

Then her mood underwent a sudden change in marked contrast to
that of the moment before. "Look here, Mr. Johnson," she said,
"down at the saloon to-night you said you always got what you
wanted. O' course I've got to admire you for that. I reckon women
always do admire men for gettin' what they want. But if huggin'
me's included, jest count it out."

For a breathing space there was a dead silence.

"That was a lovely day, Girl, on the road to Monterey, wasn't
it?" of a sudden Johnson observed dreamily.

The Girl's eyes opened upon him wonderingly.

"Was it?"

"Well, wasn't it?"

The Girl thought it was and she laughed.

"Say, take a chair and set down for a while, won't you?" was her
next remark, she herself taking a chair at the table.

"Thanks," he said, coming slowly towards her while his eyes
wandered about the room for a chair.

"Say, look 'ere!" she shot out, scrutinising him closely; "I ben
thinkin' you didn't come to the saloon to see me to-night. What
brought you?"

"It was Fate," he told her, leaning over the table and looking
down upon her admiringly.

She pondered his answer for a moment, then blurted out:

"You're a bluff! It may have been Fate, but I tho't you looked
kind o' funny when Rance asked you if you hadn't missed the trail
an' wa'n't on the road to see Nina Micheltoreña—she that lives in
the greaser settlement an' has the name o' shelterin' thieves."

At the mention of thieves, Johnson paled frightfully and the
knife which he had been toying with dropped to the floor.

"Was it Fate or the back trail?" again queried the Girl.

"It was Fate," calmly reiterated the man, and looked her fairly
in the eye.

The cloud disappeared from the Girl's face.

"Serve the coffee, Wowkle!" she called almost instantly. And
then it was that she saw that no chair had been placed at the table
for him. She sprang to her feet, exclaiming: "Oh, Lordy, you ain't
got no chair yet to—"

"Careful, please, careful," quickly warned Johnson, as she
rounded the corner of the table upon which his guns lay.

But fear was not one of the Girl's emotions. At the display of
guns that met her gaze she merely shrugged and inquired
placidly:

"Oh, how many guns do you carry?"

Not unnaturally she waited for his answer before starting in
quest of a chair for him; but instead Johnson quietly went over to
the chair near the door where his coat lay, hung it up on the peg
with his hat, and returning now with a chair, he answered:

"Oh, several when travelling through the country."

"Well, set down," said the Girl bluntly, and hurried to his side
to adjust his chair. But she did not return to her place at the
table; instead, she took the barrel rocker near the fireplace and
began to rock nervously to and fro. In silence Johnson sat studying
her, looking her through and through, as it were.

"It must be strange living all alone way up here in the
mountains," he remarked, breaking the spell of silence. "Isn't it
lonely?"

"Lonely? Mountains lonely?" The Girl's laugh rang out clearly.
"Besides," she went on, her eyes fairly dancing with excitement, "I
got a little pinto an' I'm all over the country on 'im. Finest
little horse you ever saw! If I want to I can ride right down into
the summer at the foothills with miles o' Injun pinks jest
a-laffin' an' tiger lilies as mad as blazes. There's a river there,
too—the Injuns call it a water-road—an' I can git on that an' drift
an' drift an' smell the wild syringa on the banks. An if I git
tired o' that I can turn my horse up-grade an' gallop right into
the winter an' the lonely pines an' firs a-whisperin' an'
a-sighin'. Lonely? Mountains lonely, did you say? Oh, my mountains,
my beautiful peaks, my Sierras! God's in the air here, sure! You
can see Him layin' peaceful hands on the mountain tops. He seems so
near you want to let your soul go right on up."

Johnson was touched at the depth of meaning in her words; he
nodded his head in appreciation.

"I see, when you die you won't have far to go," he quietly
observed.

Minutes passed before either spoke. Then all at once the Girl
rose and took the chair facing his, the table between them as at
first.

"Wowkle, serve the coffee!" again she called.

Immediately, Wowkle emerged from the cupboard, took the
coffee-pot from the fire and filled the cups that had been kept
warm on the fireplace base, and after placing a cup beside each
plate she squatted down before the fire in watchful silence.

"But when it's very cold up here, cold, and it snows?" queried
Johnson, his admiration for the plucky, quaint little figure before
him growing by leaps and bounds.

"Oh, the boys come up an' digs me out o' my front door
like—like—" She paused, her sunny laugh rippling out at the
recollection of it all, and Johnson noted the two delightful
dimples in her rounded cheeks. Indeed, she had never appeared
prettier to him than when displaying her two rows of perfect,
dazzling teeth, which was the case every time that she laughed.

"—like a little rabbit, eh?" he supplemented, joining in the
laugh.

She nodded eagerly.

"I get digged out near every day when the mine's shet down an'
Academy opens," went on the Girl in the same happy strain, her big
blue eyes dancing with merriment.

Johnson looked at her wonderingly; he questioned:

"Academy? Here? Why, who teaches in your Academy?"

"Me—I'm her—I'm teacher," she told him with not a little show of
pride.

With difficulty Johnson suppressed a smile; nevertheless he
observed soberly:

"Oh, so you're the teacher?"

"Yep—I learn m'self an' the boys at the same time," she hastened
to explain, and dropped a heaping teaspoon of coarse brown sugar
into his cup. "But o' course Academy's suspended when ther's a
blizzard on 'cause no girl could git down the mountain then."

"Is it so very severe here when there's a blizzard on?" Johnson
was saying, when there came to his ears a strange sound—the sound
of the wind rising in the canyon below.

The Girl looked at him in blank astonishment—a look that might
easily have been interpreted as saying, "Where do you hail from?"
She answered:

"Is it…? Oh, Lordy, they come in a minute! All of a sudden you
don't know where you are—it's awful!"

"Not many women—" digressed the man, glancing apprehensively
towards the door, but she cut him short swiftly with the
ejaculation:

"Bosh!" And picking up a plate she raised it high in the air the
better to show off its contents. "Charlotte rusks an' lemming
turnover!" she announced, searching his face for some sign of joy,
her own face lighting up perceptibly.

"Well, this is a treat!" cried out Johnson between sips of
coffee.

"Have one?"

"You bet!" he returned with unmistakable pleasure in his
voice.

The Girl served him with one of each, and when he thanked her
she beamed with happiness.

"Let me send you some little souvenir of to-night"—he said, a
little while later, his admiring eyes settled on her hair of
burnished gold which glistened when the light fell upon
it—"something that you'd just love to read in your course of
teaching at the Academy." He paused to search his mind for
something suitable to suggest to her; at length he questioned:
"Now, what have you been reading lately?"

The Girl's face broke into smiles as she answered:

"Oh, it's an awful funny book about a kepple. He was a classic
an' his name was Dent."

Johnson knitted his brows and thought a moment. "He was a
classic, you say, and his name was—Oh, yes, I know—Dante," he
declared, with difficulty controlling the laughter that well-nigh
convulsed him. "And you found Dante funny, did you?"

"Funny? I roared!" acknowledged the Girl with a frankness that
was so genuine that Johnson could not help but admire her all the
more. "You see, he loved a lady—" resumed the Girl, toying idly
with her spoon.

"—Beatrice," supplemented Johnson, pronouncing the name with the
Italian accent which, by the way, was not lost on the Girl.

"How?" she asked quickly, with eyes wide open.

Johnson ignored the question. Anxious to hear her interpretation
of the story, he requested her to continue.

"He loved a lady—" began the Girl, and broke off short. And
going over to the book-shelf she took down a volume and began to
finger the leaves absently. Presently she came back, and fixing her
eyes upon him, she went on: "It made me think of it, what you said
down to the saloon to-night about livin' so you didn't care what
come after. Well, he made up his min', this Dent—Dantes—that one
hour o' happiness with her was worth the whole da—" She checked the
word on her tongue, and concluded: "outfit that come after. He was
willin' to sell out his chances for sixty minutes with 'er. Well, I
jest put the book down an' hollered." And once more she broke into
a hearty laugh.

"Of course you did," agreed Johnson, joining in the laugh. "All
the same," he presently added, "you knew he was right."

"I didn't!" she contradicted with spirit, and slowly went back
to the book-shelf with the book.

"You did."

"Didn't!"

"You did."

"Didn't! Didn't!"

"I don't—"

"You do, you do," insisted the Girl, plumping down into the
chair which she had vacated at the table.

"Do you mean to say—" Johnson got no further, for the Girl, with
a naïveté that made her positively bewitching to the man before
her, went on as if there had been no interruption:

"That a feller could so wind h'ms'lf up as to say, 'Jest give me
one hour o' your sassiety; time ain't nothin', nothin' ain't
nothin' only to be a da—darn fool over you!' Ain't it funny to feel
like that?" And then, before Johnson could frame an answer:

"Yet, I s'pose there are people that love into the grave an'
into death an' after." The Girl's voice lowered, stopped. Then,
looking straight ahead of her, her eyes glistening, she broke out
with: