Lin McLean Part 35

But even in the midst of the joke she asked again in the same voice where was Lin McLean. He came beside her among more jokes. He had kept himself near, and now at sight of him she reached out and held him.

"Tell them to leave me go to sleep, Lin," said she.

Barker saw a chance. "Persuade her to come along," said he to McLean.

"Minutes are counting now."

"Oh, I'll come," she said, with a laugh, overhearing him, and holding still to Lin.

The rest of the old friends nudged each other. "Back seats for us," they said. "But we've had our turn in front ones." Then, thinking they would be useful in encouraging her to walk, they cl.u.s.tered again, rendering Barker and McLean once more well-nigh helpless. Clumsily the escort made its slow way across the quadrangle, cautioning itself about stones and holes. Thus, presently, she was brought into the room. The escort set her down, crowding the little place as thick as it would hold; the rest gathered thick at the door, and all of them had no thought of departing.

The notion to stay was plain on their faces.

Barker surveyed them. "Give the doctor a show now, boys," said he.

"You've done it all so far. Don't crowd my elbows. I'll want you," he whispered to McLean.

At the argument of fair-play, obedience swept over them like a veering of wind. "Don't crowd his elbows," they began to say at once, and told each other to come away. "We'll sure give the Doc room. You don't want to be shovin' your auger in, Chalkeye. You want to get yourself pretty near absent." The room thinned of them forthwith. "Fix her up good, Doc," they said, over their shoulders. They shuffled across the threshold and porch with roundabout schemes to tread quietly. When one or other stumbled on the steps and fell, he was jerked to his feet.

"You want to tame yourself," was the word. Then, suddenly, Chalkeye and Toothpick Kid came precipitately back. "Her cash," they said. And leaving the notes and coins, they hastened to catch their comrades on the way back to the dance.

"I want you," repeated Barker to McLean.

"Him!" cried Mrs. Lusk, flashing alert again. "Jessamine wants him about now, I guess. Don't keep him from his girl!" And she laughed her hard, rich laugh, looking from one to the other. "Not the two of yus can't save me," she stated, defiantly. But even in these last words a sort of thickness sounded.

"Walk her up and down," said Barker. "Keep her moving. I'll look what I can find. Keep her moving brisk." At once he was out of the door; and before his running steps had died away, the fiddle had taken up its tune across the quadrangle.

"'Buffalo Girls!'" exclaimed the woman. "Old times! Old times!"

"Come," said McLean. "Walk." And he took her.

Her head was full of the music. Forgetting all but that, she went with him easily, and the two made their first turns around the room. Whenever he brought her near the entrance, she leaned away from him toward the open door, where the old fiddle tune was coming in from the dark.

But presently she noticed that she was being led, and her face turned sullen.

"Walk," said McLean.

"Do you think so?" said she, laughing. But she found that she must go with him. Thus they took a few more turns.

"You're hurting me," she said next. Then a look of drowsy cunning filled her eyes, and she fixed them upon McLean's dogged face. "He's gone, Lin," she murmured, raising her hand where Barker had disappeared.

She knew McLean had heard her, and she held back on the quickened pace that he had set.

"Leave me down. You hurt," she pleaded, hanging on him.

The cow-puncher put forth more strength.

"Just the floor," she pleaded again. "Just one minute on the floor.

He'll think you could not keep me lifted."

Still McLean made no answer, but steadily led her round and round, as he had undertaken.

"He's playing out!" she exclaimed. "You'll be played out soon." She laughed herself half-awake. The man drew a breath, and she laughed more to feel his hand and arm strain to surmount her increasing resistance.

"Jessamine!" she whispered to him. "Jessamine! Doc'll never suspicion you, Lin."

"Talk sense," said he.

"It's sense I'm talking. Leave me go to sleep. Ah, ah, I'm going! I'll go; you can't--"

"Walk, walk!" he repeated. He looked at the door. An ache was numbing his arms.

"Oh yes, walk! What can you and all your muscle--Ah, walk me to glory, then, craziness! I'm going; I'll go. I'm quitting this outfit for keeps.

Lin, you're awful handsome to-night! I'll bet--I'll bet she has never seen you look so. Let me--let me watch yus. Anyway, she knows I came first!"

He grasped her savagely. "First! You and twenty of yu' don't--G.o.d!! what do I talk to her for?"

"Because--because--I'm going; I'll go. He slung me off--but he had to sling--you can't--stop--"

Her head was rolling, while the lips smiled. Her words came through deeper and deeper veils, fearless, defiant, a challenge inarticulate, a continuous mutter. Again he looked at the door as he struggled to move with her dragging weight. The drops rolled on his forehead and neck, his shirt was wet, his hands slipped upon her ribbons. Suddenly the drugged body folded and sank with him, pulling him to his knees. While he took breath so, the mutter went on, and through the door came the jigging fiddle. A fire of desperation lighted in his eyes. "Buffalo Girls!" he shouted, hoa.r.s.ely, in her ear, and got once more on his feet with her as though they were two partners in a quadrille. Still shouting her to wake, he struck a tottering sort of step, and so, with the bending load in his grip, strove feebly to dance the laudanum away.

Feet stumbled across the porch, and Lusk was in the room. "So I've got you!" he said. He had no weapon, but made a dive under the bed and came up with a carbine. The two men locked, wrenching impotently, and fell together. The carbine's loud shot rang in the room, but did no harm; and McLean lay sick and panting upon Lusk as Barker rushed in.

"Thank G.o.d!" said he, and flung Lusk's pistol down. The man, deranged and encouraged by drink, had come across the doctor, delayed him, threatened him with his pistol, and when he had torn it away, had left him suddenly and vanished. But Barker had feared, and come after him here. He glanced at the woman slumbering motionless beside the two men.

The husband's brief courage had gone, and he lay beneath McLean, who himself could not rise. Barker pulled them apart.

"Lin, boy, you're not hurt?" he asked, affectionately, and lifted the cow-puncher.

McLean sat pa.s.sive, with dazed eyes, letting himself be supported.

"You're not hurt?" repeated Barker.

"No," answered the cow-puncher, slowly. "I guess not." He looked about the room and at the door. "I got interrupted," he said.

"You'll be all right soon," said Barker.

"n.o.body cares for me!" cried Lusk, suddenly, and took to querulous weeping.

"Get up," ordered Barker, sternly.

"Don't accuse me, Governor," screamed Lusk. "I'm innocent." And he rose.

Barker looked at the woman and then at the husband. "I'll not say there was much chance for her," he said. "But any she had is gone through you.

She'll die."

"n.o.body cares for me!" repeated the man. "He has learned my boy to scorn me." He ran out aimlessly, and away into the night, leaving peace in the room.

"Stay sitting," said Barker to McLean, and went to Mrs. Lusk.

But the cow-puncher, seeing him begin to lift her toward the bed without help, tried to rise. His strength was not sufficiently come back, and he sank as he had been. "I guess I don't amount to much," said he. "I feel like I was nothing."

"Well, I'm something," said Barker, coming back to his friend, out of breath. "And I know what she weighs." He stared admiringly through his spectacles at the seated man.

The cow-puncher's eyes slowly travelled over his body, and then sought Barker's face. "Doc," said he, "ain't I young to have my nerve quit me this way?"

His Excellency broke into his broad smile.