Chapter 5

She thought she saw--she rubbed her eyes and looked again--she did see, and surely never a stranger sight was beheld on Fairfield's street! Had a Royal Bengal tiger come slouching through the dust it could not have been more unusual. The spectacle was a man; a very large and mighty shouldered man, who looked about him with a bold, imperious, keep-the-change regard. There was something in the swing of him that suggested the Bengal tiger. He wore high-heeled boots outside of his trousers, a flannel shirt with a yellow silk kerchief around his neck, and on his head sat a white hat which seemed to Miss Mattie to be at least a yard in diameter. Under the hat was a remarkable head of hair. It hung below the man's shoulders in a silky mass of dark scarlet, flecked with brown gold. Miss Mattie had seen red hair, but she remembered no such color as this, nor could she recall ever having seen hair a foot-and-a-half long on a man. That hair would have made a fortune on the head of an actress, but Miss Mattie was ignorant of the possibilities of the profession.

The face of the man was a fine tan, against which eyes, teeth, and moustache came out in brisk relief. The moustache avoided the tropical tint of the upper hair and was content with a modest brown. The owner came right along, walking with a stiff, strong, straddling gait, like a man not used to that way of travelling.

Miss Mattie eyed him in some fear. He would be by her house directly, and it was hardly modest to sit aggressively on one's front porch, while a strange man went by--particularly, such a very strange man as this! Yet a thrill of curiosity held her for the moment, and then it was too late, for the man stopped and asked little Eddie Newell, who was playing placidly in the dust--all the children played placidly in Fairfield--asked Eddie, in a voice which reached Miss Mattie plainly, although the owner evidently made no attempt to raise it, if he knew where Miss Mattie Saunders lived?

Eddie had not noticed the large man's approach, and nearly fell over in a fright; but seeing, with a child's intuition, that there was no danger in this fierce-looking person, he piped up instantly.

"Y-y-yessir!--I kin tell yer where she lives--Yessir! She lives right down there in that little house--I kin go down with you jes' swell 's not! Why, there she is now, on the stoop!"

"Thankee sonny," said the big voice. "Here's for miggles," and Miss Mattie caught the sparkle of a coin as it flew into the grimy fists of Eddie.

"Much obliged!" yelled Eddie and vanished up the street.

Miss Mattie sat transfixed. Her breath came in swallows and her heart beat irregularly. Here was novelty with a vengeance! The big man turned and fastened his eyes upon her. There was no retreat. She noticed with some reassurance that his eyes were grave and kindly.

As he advanced Miss Mattie rose in agitation, unconsciously putting her hand on her throat--what could it mean?

The gate was opened and the stranger strode up the cinder walk to the porch. He stopped a whole minute and looked at her. At last.

"Well, Mattie!" he said, "don't you know me?"

A flood of the wildest hypotheses flashed through Miss Mattie's mind without enlightening her. Who was this picturesque giant who stepped out of the past with so familiar a salutation? Although the porch was a foot high, and Miss Mattie a fairly tall woman, their eyes were almost on a level, as she looked at him in wonder.

Then he laughed and showed his white teeth. "No use to bother and worry you, Mattie," said he, "you couldn't call it in ten years. Well, I'm your half-uncle Fred's boy Bill--and I hope you're a quarter as glad to see me as I am to see you."

"What!" she cried. "Not little Willy who ran away!"

"The same little Willy," he replied in a tone that made Miss Mattie laugh a little, nervously, "and what I want to know is, are you glad to see me?"

"Why, of course! But, Will--I suppose I should call you Will? I am so flustered--not expecting you--and it's been so warm to-day. Won't you come in and take a chair?" wound up Miss Mattie in desperation, and fury at herself for saying things so different from what she meant to say.

There was a twinkle in the man's eye as he replied in an injured tone:

"Why, good Lord, Mattie! I've come two thousand miles or more to see you, and you ask me to take a chair. Just as if I'd stepped in from across the way! Can't you give a man a little warmer welcome than that?"

"What shall I do?" asked poor Miss Mattie.

"Well, you might kiss me, for a start," said he.

Miss Mattie was all abroad--still one's half-cousin, who has come such a distance, and been received so very oddly, is entitled to consideration. She raised her agitated face, and for the first time in her life realised the pleasure of wearing a moustache.

Then Red Saunders, late of the Chanta Seeche Ranch, North Dakota, sat him down.

"I'm obliged to you, Mattie," he said in all seriousness. "To tell you the truth, I felt in need of a little comforting--here I've come all this distance--and, of course, I _heard_ about father and mother--but I couldn't believe it was true. Seemed as if they _must_ be waiting at the old place for me to come back, and when I saw it all gone to ruin--Well, then I set out to find somebody, and do you know, of all the family, there's only you and me left? That's all, Mattie, just us two!--whilst I was growing up out West, I kind of expected things to be standing still back here, and be just the same as I left them--hum--Well, how are you anyhow?"

"I'm well, Will, and"--laying her hand upon his, "_don't_ think I'm not glad to see you--_please_ don't. I'm so glad, Will, I can't tell you--but I'm all confused--so little happens here."

"I shouldn't guess it was the liveliest place in the world, by the look of it," said Red. "And as far as that's concerned, I kinder don't know what to say myself. There's such a heap to talk about it's hard to tell where to begin--but we've got to be friends though, Mattie--we've just _got_ to be friends. Good Lord! We're all there's left! Funny, I never thought of such a thing! Well, blast it! That's enough of such talk! I've brought you a present, Mattie." He stretched out a leg that reached beyond the limits of the front porch, and dove into his trousers pocket, bringing out a buck-skin sack. He fumbled at the knot a minute and then passed it over saying, "You untie it--your fingers are soopler than mine," Miss Mattie's fingers were shaking, but the knots finally came undone, and from the sack she brought forth a chain of rich, dull yellow lumps, fashioned into a necklace. It weighed a pound. She spread it out and looked at it astounded. "Gracious, Will! Is that _gold_?" she asked.

"That's what," he replied. "The real article, just as it came out of the ground: I dug it myself. That's the reason I'm here. I'd never got money enough to go anywheres further than a horse could carry me if I hadn't taken a fly at placer mining and hit her to beat h--er--the very mischief."

Miss Mattie looked first at the barbaric, splendid necklace and then at the barbaric, splendid man. Things grew confused before her in trying to realise that it was real. What two planets so separated in their orbits as her world and his? She had the imagination that is usually lacking in small communities, and the feeling of a fairy story come true, possessed her.

"And now, Mattie," said he, "I don't know what's manners in this part of the country, but I'll make free enough on the cousin part of it to tell you that I could look at some supper without flinching. I've walked a heap to-day, and I ain't used to walking."

Miss Mattie sprang up, herself again at the chance to offer hospitality.

"Why, you poor man!" said she. "Of course you're starved! It must be nearly eight o'clock! I almost forget about eating, living here alone. You shall have supper directly. Will you come in or sit a spell outside?"

"Reckon I'll come in," said Red. "Don't want to lose sight of you now that I've found you."

It was some time since Miss Mattie had felt that anyone had cared enough for her not to want to lose sight of her, and a delicate warm bloom went over her cheeks. She hurried into the little kitchen.

"Mattie!" called Red.

"What is it, Will?" she answered, coming to the door.

"Can I smoke in this little house?"

"Cer--tainly! Sit right down and make yourself comfortable. Don't you remember what a smoker father was?"

Red tried the different chairs with his hand. They were not a stalwart lot. Finally he spied the home-made rocker in the corner. "There's the lad for me," he said, drawing it out. "Got to be kinder careful how you throw two-hundred-fifty pounds around."

"Mercy!" cried Miss Mattie, pan in hand. "Do you weigh as much as that, Will?"

"I do," returned Red, with much satisfaction. "And there isn't over two pounds of it fat at that."

"What a great man you have grown up to be, Will!"

Red took in a deep draught of tobacco and sent the vapor clear across the little room.

"On the hay-scales, yes," he answered, with a sort of joking earnestness--"but otherwise, I don't know."

The return to the old home had touched the big man deeply, and as he leaned back in his chair there was a shade of melancholy on his face that became it well.

Miss Mattie took in the mass of him stretched out at his ease, his legs crossed, and the patrician cut of his face, to which the upturned moustache gave a cavalier touch. They were good stock, the Saunders, and the breed had not declined in the only two extant.

"He's my own cousin!" she whispered to herself, in the safety of the kitchen. "And such a splendid looking man!" She felt a pride of possession she had never known before. Nobody in Fairfield or vicinity had such a cousin as that. And Miss Mattie went on joyfully fulfilling an inherited instinct to minister to the wants of some man. She said to herself there was some satisfaction in cooking for somebody else. But alack-a-day, Miss Mattie's ideas of the wants of somebody else had suffered a Fairfield change. Nothing was done on a large scale in Fairfield. But she sat the little cakes--lucky that she had made them yesterday--and the fried mush, and the small pitcher of milk, and the cold ham, and the cold biscuit on the table with a pride in the appearance of the feast.

"Supper's ready, Will," said she.

Red responded instanter. Took a look at the board and understood. He ate the little cakes and biscuit, and said they were the durned best he ever tasted. He also took some pot-cheese under a misapprehension; swallowed it, and said to himself that he had been through worse things than that. Then, when his appetite had just begun to develop, the inroads on the provisions warned him that it was time to stop. Meanwhile they had ranged the fields of old times at random, and as Red took in Miss Mattie, pink with excitement and sparkling as to eyes, he thought, "Blast the supper! It's a square meal just to look at her. If she ain't pretty good people, I miss my guess."

It was a merry meal. He had such a way of telling things! Miss Mattie hadn't laughed so much for years, and she felt that there was no one that she had known so long and so well as Cousin Will. There was only one jarring note. Red spoke of the vigorous celebration that had been followed by the finding of gold. It was certainly well told, but Miss Mattie asked in soft horror when he had finished, "You didn't get--_intoxicated_--Will?"

"DID I?" said he, lost in memory, and not noticing the tone. "Well, I put my hand down the throat of that man's town, and turned her inside out! It was like as if Christmas and Fourth of July had happened on the same day."

"Oh, Will!" cried Miss Mattie, "I can't think of you like that--rolling in the gutter." Her voice shook and broke off. Her knowledge of the effect of stimulants was limited to Fairfield's one drunkard--old Tommy McKee, a disreputable old Irishman--but drunkenness was the worst vice in her world.

"Rolling in the gutter!" cried Red, in astonishment. "Why girl! What for would I roll in the gutter? What's the fun in that? Jiminy Christmas! I wanted to walk on the telegraph wires--there wasn't anything in that town high enough for me--what put gutters into your head?"

"I--I supposed people did that when they were--like that."

"I wouldn't waste my money on whisky, if that's all the inspiration I got out of it," replied Red.

"Well, of course I don't know about those things, but I wish you'd promise me one thing."

"Done!" cried Red. "What is it?"

"I wish you'd promise me not to touch whisky again!"

"Phew! That's a pretty big order!" He stopped and thought a minute. "If you'll make that 'never touch it when it ain't needed,' leaving when it's needed to what's my idea of the square thing on a promise, I'll go you, Mattie--there's my hand."

"Oh, I shouldn't have said anything at all, Will! I have no right. But it seemed such a pity such a splendid man--I mean--I think--. You mustn't promise me anything, Will," stammered Miss Mattie, shocked at her own daring.

"Here!" he cried, "I'm no little kid! When I promise I mean it! As for your not having any right, ain't we all there is? You've got to be mother and sister and aunt and everything to me. I ain't as young as I have been, Mattie, and I miss she-ways terrible at times. Now put out your fin like a good pardner, and here goes for no more rhinecaboos for Chantay Seeche Red--time I quit drinking, anyhow," he slipped a ring off his little finger. "Here, hold out your hand," said he, "I'll put this on for luck, and the sake of the promise--by the same token, I've got a noose on you now, and you're my property."

This, of course, was only Cousin Will's joking, but Miss Mattie noticed with a sudden hot flush, that he had chosen the engagement finger--in all ignorance, she felt sure. The last thing she could do would be to call his attention to the fact, or run the risk of hurting his feelings by transferring the ring; besides, it was a pretty ring--a rough ruby in a plain gold band--and looked very well where it was.

Then they settled down for what Red called a good medicine talk. Miss Mattie found herself boldly speaking of little fancies and notions that had remained in the inner shrine of her soul for years, shrinking from the matter-of-fact eye of Fairfield; yet this big, ferocious looking Cousin Will seemed to find them both sane and interesting, and as her self-respect went up in the arithmetical, her admiration for Cousin Will went up in the geometrical ratio. He frankly admitted weaknesses and fears that the males of Fairfield would have rejected scornfully.

Miss Mattie spoke of sleeping upstairs, because she could not rid herself of the fear of somebody coming in.

"I know just how you feel about that," said Red. "My hair used to be on its feet most of the time when we were in the hay camp at the lake beds. Gee whizz! The rattlers! We put hair ropes around--but them rattlers liked to squirm over hair ropes for exercise. One morning I woke up and there was a crawler on my chest. 'For God's sake, Pete!' says I to Antelope Pete, who was rolled up next me, 'come take my friend away!' and I didn't holler very loud, neither. Pete was chain lightning in pants, and he grabs Mr. Rattler by the tail and snaps his neck, but I felt lonesome in my inside till dinner time. You bet! I know just how you feel, exactly. I didn't have a man's sized night's rest whilst we was in that part of the country."

It struck Miss Mattie that the cases were hardly parallel. "A rattlesnake on your chest, Will!" she cried, with her hands clasped in terror.

"Oh! it wasn't as bad as it sounds--he was asleep--coiled up there to get warm--sharpish nights on the prairie in August--but darn it! Mattie!" wrinkling up his nose in disgust, "I hate the sight of the brutes!"

"But you wouldn't be afraid of a man, Will!"

"Well, no," admitted he. "I've never been troubled much that way. You see, everybody has a different fear to throw a crimp in them. Mine's rattlesnakes and these little bugs with forty million pairs of legs. I pass right out when I see one of them things. They give me a feeling as if my stummick had melted."

"Weren't the Indians terrible out there, too?" asked Miss Mattie. "I'm sure they must have been."

"Oh, they ain't bad people if you use 'em right," said Red. "Not that I like 'em any better on the ground, than in it," he added hastily, fearful of betraying the sentiment of his country, "but I never had but one real argument, man to man. Black Wolf and I come together over a matter of who owned my cayuse, and from words we backed off and got to shooting. He raked me from knee to hip, as I was kneeling down, doing the best I could by him, and wasting ammunition because I was in a hurry. Still, I did bust his ankle. In the middle of the fuss a stray shot hit the cayuse in the head and he croaked without a remark, so there we were, a pair of fools miles from home with nothing left to quarrel about! You could have fried an egg on a rock that day, and it always makes you thirsty to get shot anyways serious, thinking of which I hollered peace to old Black Wolf and told him I'd pull straws with him to see who took my canteen down to the creek and got some fresh water. He was agreeable and we hunched up to each other. It ain't to my credit to say it, but I was worse hurt than that Injun, so I worked him. He got the short straw, and had to crawl a mile through cactus, while I sat comfortable on the cause of the disagreement and yelled to him that he looked like a badger, and other things that an Injun wouldn't feel was a compliment." Red leaned back and roared. "I can see him now putting his hands down so careful, and turning back every once in awhile to cuss me. Turned out that it was his cayuse, too. Feller that sold it to me had stole it from him. I oughtn't to laugh over it, but I can't help but snicker when I think how I did that Injun."

Generally speaking, Miss Mattie had a lively sense of humour, but the joke of this was lost on her. Her education had been that getting shot was far from funny.

"Why, I should have thought you would have died, Will!"

"What! For a little crack in the leg!" cried Red, with some impatience. "You people must quit easy in this country. Die nothin'. One of our boys came along and took us to camp, and we was up and doing again in no time. 'Course, Black Wolf has a game leg for good, but the worst that's stuck to me is a yank or two of rheumatism in the rainy season. I paid Wolf for his cayuse," he finished shamefacedly. "I had the laugh on him anyhow."

Miss Mattie told him she thought that was noble of him, which tribute Red took as medicine, and shifted the subject with speed, to practical affairs. He asked Miss Mattie how much money she had and how she managed to make out. Now, it was one of the canons of good manners in Fairfield not to speak of material matters--perhaps because there was so little material matter in the community, but Miss Mattie, doomed to a thousand irksome petty economies, had often longed for a sympathetic ear, to pour into it a good honest complaint of hating to do this and that. She could not exactly go this far with Cousin Will, but she could say that it was pretty hard to get along, and give some details. She felt that she knew him so very well, in those few hours! Red heard with nods of assent. He had scented the conditions at once.

"It ain't any fun, skidding on the thin ice," said he, when they had concluded the talk. "I've had to count the beans I put in the pot, and it made me hate arithmetic worse than when I went over yonder to school. Well, them days have gone by for you, Mattie." He reached down and pulling out a green roll, slapped it on the centre table. "Blow that in, and limber up, and remember that there's more behind it."

Miss Mattie's pride rose at a leap.

"Will!" she said, "I hope you don't think I've told you this to get money from you?"

He leaned forward, put his hand on her shoulder and held her eyes with a sudden access of sternness and authority.

"And I hope, Mattie," said he, "that you don't think that I think anything of the kind?"

The cousins stared into each other's eyes for a full minute. Then Miss Mattie spoke. "No, Will," said she, "I don't believe you do."

"I shouldn't think I did," retorted Red. "What in thunder would I do with all that money? Why, good Lord, girl, I could paper your house with ten-dollar bills--now you try to fly them green kites, like I tell you."

Miss Mattie broke down, the not fully realised strain of fifteen years had made itself felt when the cord snapped. "I don't know how to thank you. I don't know what to say. Oh, William! it seems too good to be true."

"What you crying about, Mattie?" said he in sore distress. "Now hold on! Listen to me a minute! There's something I want you to do for me."

"What is it?" she asked, drying her eyes. "For dinner to-morrow," he replied, "let's have a roast of beef about that size," indicating a wash-tub.

The diversion was complete.

"Why, Will! What would we ever do with it?" said she.

"Do with it? Why, eat it!"

"But we couldn't eat all that!"

"Then throw what's left to the cats. You ain't going to fall down on me the first favour I ask?" with mock seriousness.

"You shall have the roast of beef. 'Pears to me that you're fond of your stomach, Will," said Miss Mattie, with a recovering smile.

"I have a good stomach, that's always done the right thing by me, when I've done the right thing by _it_," said Red. "And moreover, just look at the constitution I have to support. But say, old lady, look at that!" pointing to the clock. "Eleven-thirty; time decent people were putting up for the night."

The words brought to an acute stage a wandering fear which had passed through Miss Mattie's mind at intervals during the evening. Where was she to look for sleeping accommodations for a man? She revolted against the convention, that, in her own mind, as well as the rest of Fairfield, forbade the use of her house for the purpose. Long habit of thought had made these niceties constitutional. It was almost as difficult for Miss Mattie to say "I'll fix up your bed right there on the sofa" as it would have been for Red to pick a man's pocket, yet, when she thought of his instant and open generosity and what a dismal return therefor it would be to thrust him out for reasons which she divined would have no meaning for him, she heroically resolved to throw custom to the winds, and speak.

But the difficulty was cut in another fashion.

"There's a little barn in the back-yard that caught my eye," said Red, "and if you'll lend me a blanket I'll roll it out there."

"Sleep in the barn! You'll not do any such thing!" cried Miss Mattie. "You'll sleep right here on the sofa, or upstairs in my bed, just as you choose."

"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not. So help me Bob! I'd smother in here. Had the darnedest time coming on that ever was--hotels. Little white rooms with the walls coming in on you. Worse than rattlesnakes for keeping a man awake. Reminds me of the hospital. Horse fell on me once and smashed me up so that I had to be sent to get puttied up again, and I never struck such a month as that since I was born. The doc. told me I mustn't move, but I told him I'd chuck him out of the window if he tried to stop me, and up I got. I'd have gone dead sure if they'd held me a week more. I speak for the barn, Mattie, and I speak real loud; that is, I mean to say I'm going to sleep in the barn, unless there's somebody a heap larger than you on the premises. Now, there's no use for you to talk--I'm going to do just as I say."