CHAPTER XI—“NO FUN FOOLING HER”

Accompanied by Martha, who rode one of the horses Parsons had bought, Marion Harlan began her trip to the Arrow shortly after dawn.

The girl had said nothing to Parsons regarding her meeting with Taylor the previous day, nor of her intention to pass the day at the Arrow. For she feared that Parsons might make some objection—and she wanted to go.

That she feared her uncle’s deterrent influence argued that she was aware that she was doing wrong in going to the Arrow—even with Martha as chaperon; but that was, perhaps, the very reason the thought of going engaged her interest.

She wondered many times, as she rode, with the negro woman trailing her, if there was not inherent in her some of those undesirable traits concerning which the good people of Westwood had entertained fears.

The thought crimsoned her cheeks and brightened her eyes; but she knew she had no vicious thoughts—that she was going to the Arrow, not because she wanted to see Taylor again, but because she wanted to sit in the room that had been occupied by her father. She wanted to look again at his belongings, to feel his former presence—as she had felt it while gazing out over the vast level beyond the river, where he had ridden many times.

She looked in on Mrs. Mullarky as they passed the Mullarky cabin, and when the good woman learned of her proposed visit to the Arrow, she gave her entire approval.

“I don’t blame you, darlin’,” declared Mrs. Mullarky. “Let the world jabber—if it wants to. If it was me father that had been over there, I’d stay there, takin’ Squint Taylor at his word—an’ divvle a bit I’d care what the world would say about it!”

So Marion rode on, slightly relieved. But the crimson stain was still on her cheeks when she and Martha dismounted at the porch, and she looked fearfully around, half-expecting that Taylor would appear from somewhere, having tricked her.

But Taylor was nowhere in sight. A fat man appeared from somewhere in the vicinity of the stable, doffed his hat politely, informed her that he was the “stable boss” and would care for the horses; he having been delegated by Taylor to perform whatever service Miss Harlan desired; and ambled off, leading the horses, leaving the girl and Martha standing near the edge of the porch.

Marion entered the house with a strange feeling of guilt and shame. Standing in the open doorway—where she had seen Taylor standing when she had dismounted the day before—she was afflicted with regret and mortification over her coming. It wasn’t right for a girl to do as she was doing; and for an instant she hesitated on the verge of flight.

But Martha’s voice directly behind her, reassured her.

“They ain’t a soul here, honey—not a soul. You’ve got the whole house to yo’self. This am a lark—shuah enough. He, he, he!”

It was the voice of the temptress—and Marion heeded it. With a defiant toss of her head she entered the room, took off her hat, laid it on a convenient table, calmly telling Martha to do the same. Then she went boldly from one room to another, finally coming to a halt in the doorway of the room that had been occupied by her father.

For her that room seemed to hallow the place. It was as though her father were here with her; as though there were no need of Martha being here with her. The thought of it removed any stigma that might have been attached to her coming; it made her heedless of the opinion of the world and its gossip-mongers.

She forgot the world in her interest, and for more than an hour, with Martha sitting in a chair sympathetically watching her, she reveled in the visible proofs of her father’s occupancy of the room.

Later she and Martha went out on the porch, where, seated in rocking-chairs—that had not been on the porch the day before—she filled her mental vision with pictures of her father’s life at the Arrow. Those pictures were imaginary, but they were intensely satisfying to the girl who had loved her father, for she could almost see him moving about her.

“You shuah does look soft an’ dreamy, honey,” Martha told her once. “You looks jes’ like a delicate ghost. A while ago, lookin’ at you, I shuah was scared you was goin’ to blow away!”

But Marion was not the ethereal wraith that Martha thought her. She proved that a little later, when, with the negro woman abetting her, she went into the house and prepared dinner. For she ate so heartily that Martha was forced to amend her former statement.

“For a ghost you shuah does eat plenty, honey,” she said.

Later they were out on the porch again. The big level on the other side of the river was flooded with a slumberous sunshine, with the glowing, rose haze of early afternoon enveloping it, and the girl was enjoying it when there came an interruption.

A cowboy emerged from a building down near the corral—Marion learned later that the building was the bunkhouse, which meant that it was used as sleeping-quarters for the Arrow outfit—and walked, with the rolling stride so peculiar to his kind, toward the porch.

He was a tall young man, red of face, and just now affected with a mighty embarrassment, which was revealed in the awkward manner in which he removed his hat and shuffled his feet as he came to a halt within a few feet of Marion.

“The boss wants to know how you are gettin’ along, ma’am, an’ if there’s anything you’re wantin’?”

“We are enjoying ourselves immensely, thank you; and there is nothing we want—particularly.”

The puncher had turned to go before the girl thought of the significance of the “boss.”

Her face was a trifle pale as she called to the puncher.

“Who is your boss—if you please?” she asked.

The puncher wheeled, a slow grin on his face.

“Why, Squint Taylor, ma’am.”

She sat erect. “Do you mean that Mr. Taylor is here?”

“He’s in the bunkhouse, ma’am.”

She got up, and, holding her head very erect, began to walk toward the room in which she had left her hat.

But half-way across the porch the puncher’s voice halted her:

“Squint was sayin’ you didn’t expect him to be here, an’ that I’d have to do the explainin’. He couldn’t come, you see.”

“Ashamed, I suppose,” she said coldly.

She was facing the puncher now, and she saw him grin.

“Why, no, ma’am; I don’t reckon he’s a heap ashamed. But it’d be mighty inconvenient for him. You see, ma’am, this mornin’, when he was gittin’ ready to ride to the south line, his cayuse got an ornery streak an’ throwed him, sprainin’ Squint’s ankle.”

The girl’s emotions suddenly reacted; the resentment she had yielded to became self-reproach. For she had judged hastily, and she had always felt that one had no right to judge hastily.

And Taylor had been remarkably considerate; for he had not even permitted her to know of the accident until after noon. That indicated that he had no intention of forcing himself on her.

She hesitated, saw Martha grinning into a hand, looked at the puncher’s expressionless face, and felt that she had been rather prudish. Her cheeks flushed with color.

Taylor had actually been a martyr on a small scale in confining himself to the bunkhouse, when he could have enjoyed the comforts and spaciousness of the ranchhouse if it had not been for her own presence.

“Is—is his ankle badly sprained?” she hesitatingly asked the now sober-faced puncher.

“Kind of bad, ma’am; he ain’t been able to do no walkin’ on it. Been hobblin’ an’ swearin’, mostly, ma’am. It’s sure a trial to be near him.”

“And it is warm here; it must be terribly hot in that little place!”

She was at the edge of the porch now, her face radiating sympathy.

“I am not surprised that he should swear!” she told the puncher, who grinned and muttered:

“He’s sure first class at it, ma’am.”

“Why,” she said, paying no attention to the puncher’s compliment of his employer, “he is hurt, and I have been depriving him of his house. You tell him to come right out of that stuffy place! Help him to come here!”

And without waiting to watch the puncher depart, she darted into the house, pulled a big rocker out on the porch, got a pillow and arranged it so that it would form a resting-place for the injured man’s head—providing he decided to occupy the chair, which she doubted—and then stood on the edge of the porch, awaiting his appearance.

Inside the bunkhouse the puncher was grinning at Taylor, who, with his right foot swathed in bandages, was sitting on a bench, anxiously awaiting the delivery of the puncher’s message.

“Well, talk, you damned grinning inquisitor!” was Taylor’s greeting to the puncher. “What did she say?”

“At first she didn’t seem to be a heap overjoyed to know that you was in this country,” said the other; “but when she heard you’d been hurt she sort of stampeded, invitin’ you to come an’ set on the porch with her.”

Taylor got up and started for the door, the bandaged foot dragging clumsily.

“Shucks,” drawled the puncher; “if you go to _runnin’_ to her she’ll have suspicions. Accordin’ to my notion, she expects you to come a hobblin’, same as though your leg was broke. ‘Help him to come,’ she told me. An’ you’re goin’ that way—you hear me! I’ll bust your ankle with a club before I’ll have her think I’m a liar!”

“Maybe I _was_ a little eager,” grinned Taylor.

An instant later he stepped out of the bunkhouse door, leaning heavily on the puncher’s shoulder.

The two made slow progress to the porch; and Taylor’s ascent to the porch and his final achievement of the rocking-chair were accomplished slowly, with the assistance of Miss Harlan.

Then, with a face almost the color of the scarlet neckerchief he wore, Taylor watched the retreat of the puncher.

His face became redder when Miss Harlan drew another rocker close to his and demanded to be told the story of the accident.

“My own fault,” declared Taylor. “I was in a hurry. Accidents always happen that way, don’t they? Slipped trying to swing on my horse, with him running. Missed the stirrup. Clumsy, wasn’t it?”

Eager to keep his word, of course, Marion reasoned. She had insisted that he be gone when she arrived, and he had injured himself hurrying.

She watched him as he talked of the accident. And now for the first time she understood why he had acquired the nickname Squint.

His eyes were deep-set, though not small. He did not really squint, for there was plenty of room between the eyelids—which, by the way, were fringed with lashes that might have been the envy of any woman; but there were many little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, which spread fanwise toward cheek and brow, and these created the illusion of squinting.

Also, he had a habit of partially closing his eyes when looking directly at one; and at such times they held a twinkling glint that caused one to speculate over their meaning.

Miss Harlan was certain the twinkle meant humor. But other persons had been equally sure the twinkle meant other emotions, or passion. Looking into Taylor’s eyes in the dining-car, Carrington had decided they were filled with cold, implacable hostility, with the promise of violence, to himself. And yet the squint had not been absent.

Whatever had been expressed in the eyes had been sufficient to deter Carrington from his announced purpose to “knock hell out of” their owner.

The girl was aware that Taylor was not handsome; that his attractions were not of a surface character. Something about him struck deeper than that. A subtle magnetism gripped her—the magnetism of strength, moral and mental. In his eyes she could see the signs of it; in the lines of his jaw and the set of his lips were suggestions of indomitability and force.

All the visible signs were, however, glossed over with the deep, slow humor that radiated from him, that glowed in his eyes.

It all made her conscious of a great similarity between them; for despite the doubts and suspicions of the people of Westwood, she had been able to survive—and humor had been the grace that had saved her from disappointment and pessimism. Those other traits in Taylor—visible to one who studied him—she knew for her own; and her spirits now responded to his.

Her cheeks were glowing as she looked at him, and her eyes, half veiled by the drooping lashes, were dancing with mischief.

“You were in that hot bunkhouse all morning,” she said. “Why didn’t you send word before?”

“You were careful to tell me that you didn’t want me around when you came.”

There was a gleam of reproach in his eyes.

“But you were injured!”

“Look how things go in the world,” he invited, narrowing his eyes at her. “It’s almost enough to make a man let go all holds and just drift along. Maybe a man would be just as well off.

“Early this morning I knew I had to light out for the day, and I didn’t want to go any more than a gopher wants to go into a rattlesnake’s den. But I had to keep my word. Then Spotted Tail gets notions——”

“Spotted Tail?” she interrupted.

“My horse,” he grinned at her. “He gets notions. Maybe he wants to get away as much as I want to stay. Anyhow, he was in a hurry; and things shape up so that I’ve got to stay.

“And then, when I hang around the bunkhouse all morning, worrying because I’m afraid you’ll find out that I didn’t keep my word, and that I’m still here, you send word that you’ll not object to me coming on the porch with you. I’d call that a misjudgment all around—on my part.”

“Yes—it was that,” she told him. “You certainly are entitled to the comforts of your own house—especially when you are hurt. But are you sure you _worried_ because you were afraid I would discover you were here?”

“I expect you can prove that by looking at me, Miss Harlan—noticing that I’ve got thin and pale-looking since you saw me last?”

She threw a demure glance at him. “I am afraid you are in great danger; you do not look nearly as well as when I saw you, the first time, on the train.”

He looked gravely at her.

“The porter threw them out of the window,” he said. “That is, I gave him orders to.”

“What?” she said, perplexed. “I don’t understand. What did the porter throw out of the window?”

“My dude clothes,” he said.

So he _had_ observed the ridicule in her eyes.

She met his gaze, and both laughed.

He had been curious about her all along, and he artfully questioned her about Westwood, gradually drawing from her the rather unexciting details of her life. Yet these details were chiefly volunteered, Taylor noticed, and did not result entirely from his questions.

Carrington’s name came into the discussion, also, and Parsons. Taylor discovered that Carrington and Parsons had been partners in many business deals, and that they had come to Dawes because the town offered many possibilities. The girl quoted Carrington’s words; Taylor was convinced that she knew nothing of the character of the business the men had come to Dawes to transact.

Their talk strayed to minor subjects and to those of great importance, ranging from a discussion of prairie hens to sage comment upon certain abstruse philosophy. Always, however, the personal note was dominant and the personal interest acute.

That atmosphere—the deep interest of each for the other—made their conversation animated. For half the time the girl paid no attention to Taylor’s words. She watched him when he talked, noting the various shades of expression of his eyes, the curve of his lips, wondering at the deep music of his voice. She marveled that at first she had thought him uninteresting and plain.

For she had discovered that he was rather good-looking; that he was endowed with a natural instinct to reach accurate and logical conclusions; that he was quiet-mannered and polite—and a gentleman. Her first impressions of him had not been correct, for during their talk she discovered through casual remarks, that Taylor had been educated with some care, that his ancestors were of that sturdy American stock which had made the settling of the eastern New-World wilderness possible, and that there was in his manner the unmistakable gentleness of good breeding.

However, Taylor’s first impressions of the girl had endured without amendations. At a glance he had yielded to the spell of her, and the intimate and informal conversation carried on between them; the flashes of personality he caught merely served to convince him of her desirability.

Twice during their talk Martha cleared her throat significantly and loudly, trying to attract their attention.

The efforts bore no fruit, and Martha might have been entirely forgotten if she had not finally got to her feet and laid a hand on Marion’s shoulder.

“I’s gwine to lie down a spell, honey,” she said. “You-all don’t need no third party to entertain you. An’ I’s powerful tiahd.” And over the girl’s shoulder she smiled broadly and sympathetically at Taylor.

The sun was filling the western level with a glowing, golden haze when Miss Harlan got to her feet and announced that she was going home.

“It’s the first day I have really enjoyed,” she told Taylor as she sat in the saddle, looking at him. He had got up and was standing at the porch edge. “That is, it is the first enjoyable day I have passed since I have been here,” she added.

“I wouldn’t say that I’ve been exactly bored myself,” he grinned at her. “But I’m not so sure about Friday; for if you come Friday the chances are that my ankle will be well again, and I’ll have to make myself scarce. You see, my excuse will be gone.”

Martha was sitting on her horse close by, and her eyes were dancing.

“Don’ you go an’ bust your haid, Mr. Taylor!” she warned. “I knows somebuddy that would be powerful sorry if that would happen to you!”

“Martha!” said Marion severely. But her eyes were eloquent as they met Taylor’s twinkling ones; and she saw a deep color come into Taylor’s cheeks.

Taylor watched her until she grew dim in the distance; then he turned and faced the tall young puncher, who had stepped upon the porch and had been standing near.

The puncher grinned. “Takin’ ’em off now, boss?” he asked.

He pointed to the bandages on Taylor’s right foot. In one of the young puncher’s hands was Taylor’s right boot.

“Yes,” returned Taylor.

He sat down in the rocker he had occupied all afternoon, and the young puncher removed the bandages, revealing Taylor’s bare foot and ankle, with no bruise or swelling to mar the white skin.

Taylor drew on the sock which the puncher drew from the boot; then he pulled on the boot and stood up.

The puncher was grinning hugely, but no smile was on Taylor’s face.

“It worked, boss,” said the puncher; “she didn’t tumble. I thought I’d laff my head off when I seen her fixin’ the pillow for you—an’ your foot not hurt more than mine. You ought to be plumb tickled, pullin’ off a trick like that!”

“I ain’t a heap tickled,” declared Taylor glumly. “There’s no fun in fooling _her_!”

Which indicated that Taylor’s thoughts were now serious.