Lonesome Land Part 7

"Tain't any job a man oughta tackle alone,' I says to him. 'Git help, Man, git help.'

"Well, by granny--_he-he!_ Man's wife brustled up at me like a--a--" He searched his brain for a simile, and failed to find one. "'I have been helping Manley, Mr. Polycarp Jenks,' she says to me, 'and I flatter myself I have done as well as any _man_ could do.' And, by granny! the way them yeller eyes of hern blazed at me--_he-he!_ I had to laugh, jest to look at her. Dressed jest like a city girl, by granny! with ruffles on her skirts--to ketch afire if she wasn't mighty keerful!--and a big straw hat tied down with a veil, and kid gloves on her hands, and her yeller hair kinda fallin' around her face--and them yeller eyes snappin' like flames--by granny! if she didn't make as purty a picture as I ever want to set eyes on! Slim and straight, jest like a storybook woman--_he-he!_ 'Course, she was all smoke an' dirt; a big flake of burned gra.s.s was on her hair, I took notice, and them ruffles was black up to her knees--_he-he!_ And she had a big s.m.u.t on her cheek--but she was right there with her stack of blues, by granny! Settin' into the game like a--a--" He leaned and spat "But burnin' guards ain't no work for a woman to do, an' I told Man so--straight out. 'You git help,' I says. 'I see you're might' near through with this here strip,' I says, 'an' I'm in a hurry, or I'd stay, right now.' And, by granny! if that there wife of Man's didn't up an' hit me another biff--_he-he!_

"'Thank you very much,' she says to me, like ice water. 'When we need your help, we'll be sure to let you know--but at present,' she says, 'we couldn't think of troubling you.' And then, by granny! she turns right around and smiles up at me--_he-he!_ Made me feel like somebody'd tickled m' ear with a spear of hay when I was asleep, by granny! Never felt anything like it--not jest with somebody smilin' at me.

"'Polycarp Jenks,' she says to me, 'we do appreciate what you've told us, and I believe you're right,' she says. 'But don't insiniwate I'm not as good a fighter as any man who ever breathed,' she says. 'Manley has another of his headaches to-day--going to town always gives him a sick headache,'

she says, 'and I've done nearly all of this my own, lone self,' she says.

'And I'm horribly proud of it, and I'll never forgive you for saying I--'

And then, by granny! if she didn't begin to blink them eyes, and I felt like a--a--" He put the usual period to his hesitation.

"Between you an' _me_, Kenneth," he added, looking at Kent slyly, "she ain't having none too easy a time. Man's gone back to drinkin'--I knowed all the time he wouldn't stay braced up very long--lasted about six weeks, from all I c'n hear. Mebbe she reely thinks it's jest headaches ails him when he comes back from town--I dunno. You can't never tell what idees a woman's got tacked away under her hair--from all I c'n gether. I don't p'tend to know nothing about 'em--don't want to know--_he-he!_ But I guess," he hinted cunningly, "I know as much about 'em as you do--hey, Kenneth? You don't seem to chase after 'em none, yourself--_he-he!_"

"Whereabouts did Man run his guards?" asked Kent, pa.s.sing over the invitation to personal confessions.

Polycarp gave a grunt of disdain. "Just on the west rim of his coulee.

About forty rod of six-foot guard, and slanted so it'll shoot a fire right into high gra.s.s at the head of the coulee and send it kitin' over this way.

That's supposin' it turns a fire, which it won't. Six feet--a fall like this here! Why, I never see gra.s.s so thick on this range--did you?"

"I wonder, did he burn that extra guard?" Kent was keeping himself rigidly to the subject of real importance.

"No, by granny! he didn't--not unless he done it since yest'day. He went to town for suthin, and he might' nigh forgot to go home--_he-he!_ He was there yest'day about three o'clock, an' I says to him--"

"Well, so-long; I got to, be moving." Kent gathered up the reins and went his way, leaving Polycarp just in the act of drawing his "plug" from his pocket, by his usual laborious method, in mental preparation for another half hour of talk.

"If you're ridin' over that way, Kenneth, you better take a look at Man's guard," he called after him. "A good mile of guard, along there, would help a lot if a fire got started beyond. The way he fixed it, it ain't no account at all."

Kent proved by a gesture that he heard him, and rode on without turning to look back. Already his form was blurred as Polycarp gazed after him, and in another minute or two he was blotted out completely by the smoke veil, though he rode upon the level. Polycarp watched him craftily, though there was no need, until he was completely hidden, then he went on, ruminating upon the faults of his acquaintances.

Kent had no intention of riding over to Cold Spring. He had not been there since Manley's marriage, though he had been a frequent visitor before, and unless necessity drove him there, it would be long before he faced again the antagonism of Mrs. Fleetwood. Still, he was mentally uncomfortable, and he felt much resentment against Polycarp Jenks because he had caused that discomfort. What was it to him, if Manley had gone bock to drinking? He asked the question more than once, and he answered always that it was nothing to him, of course. Still, he wished futilely that he had not been quite so eager to cover up Manley's weakness and deceive the girl. He ought to have given her a chance--

A cinder like a huge black snowflake struck him suddenly upon the cheek. He looked up, startled, and tried to see farther into the haze which closed him round. It seemed to him, now that his mind was turned from his musings, that the smoke was thicker, the smell of burning gra.s.s stronger, and the breath of wind hotter upon his face. He turned, looked away to the west, fancied there a tumbled blackness new to his sight, and put his horse to a run. If there were fire close, then every second counted; and as he raced over the uneven prairie he fumbled with the saddle string that held a sodden sack tied fast to the saddle, that he might lose no time.

The cinders grew thicker, until the air was filled with them, like a snowstorm done in India ink. A little farther and he heard a faint crackling; topped a ridge and saw not far ahead, a dancing, yellow line.

His horse was breathing heavily with the pace he was keeping, but Kent, swinging away from the onrush of flame and heat, spurred him to a greater speed. They neared the end of the crackling, red line, and as Kent swung in behind it upon the burned ground, he saw several men beating steadily at the flames.

He was hardly at work when Polycarp came running up and took his place beside him; but beyond that Kent paid no attention to the others, though he heard and recognized the voice of Fred De Garmo calling out to some one.

The smoke which rolled up in uneven volumes as the wind lifted it and bore it away, or let it suck backward as it veered for an instant, blinded him while he fought. He heard other men gallop up, and after a little some one clattered up with a wagon filled with barrels of water. He ran to wet his sack, and saw that it was Blumenthall himself, foreman of the Double Diamond, who drove the team.

"Lucky it ain't as windy as it was yesterday and the day before,"

Blumenthall cried out, as Kent stepped upon the brake block to reach a barrel. "It'd sweep the whole country if it was."

Kent nodded, and ran back to the fire, trailing the dripping sack after him. As he pa.s.sed Polycarp and another, he heard Polycarp saying something about Man Fleetwood's fire guard; but he did not stop to hear what it was.

Polycarp was always talking, and he didn't always keep too closely to facts.

Then, of a sudden, he saw men dimly when he glanced down the leaping fire line, and he knew that the fire was almost conquered. Another frenzied minute or two, and he was standing in a group of men, who dropped their charred, blackened fragments of blanket and bags, and began to feel for their smoking material, while they stamped upon stray embers which looked live enough to be dangerous.

"Well, she's out," said a voice, "But it did look for a while as if it'd get away in spite of us."

Kent turned away, wiping an eye which held a cinder fast under the lid. It was Fred De Garmo who spoke.

"If somebody'd been watchin' the railroad a leetle might closer--" Polycarp began, in his thin, rasping voice.

Fred cut him short. "I thought you laid it to Man Fleetwood, burning fire guards," he retorted. "Keep on, and you'll get it right pretty soon. This never come from the railroad; you can gamble on that."

Blumenthall had left his team and come among them. "If you want to know how it started, I can tell you. Somebody dropped a match, or a cigarette, or something, by the trail up here a ways. I saw where it started when I went to Cold Spring after the last load of water. And if I knew who it was--"

Polycarp launched his opinion first, as usual. "Well, I don't _know_ who done it--but, by granny! I can might' nigh guess who it was. There's jest one man that I know of been traveling that trail lately when he wa'n't in his sober senses--"

Here Manley Fleetwood rode up to them, coughing at the soot his horse kicked up. "Say! you fellows come on over to the house and have something to eat--and," he added significantly, "something _wet_. I told my wife, when I saw the fire, to make plenty of coffee, for fighting fire's hungry work, let me tell. Come on--no hanging back, you know. There'll be lots of coffee, and I've got a quart of something better cached in the haystack!"

As he had said, fighting fire is hungry work, and none save Blumenthall, who was dyspeptic and only ate twice a day, and then of certain foods prepared by himself, declined the invitation.

CHAPTER VII

VAL'S NEW DUTIES

To Val the days of heat and smoke, and the isolation, had made life seem unreal, like a dream which holds one fast and yet is absurd and utterly improbable. Her past was pushed so far from her that she could not even long for it as she had done during the first few weeks. There were nights of utter desolation, when Manley was in town upon some errand which prevented his speedy return--nights when the coyotes howled much louder than usual, and she could not sleep for the mysterious snapping and creaking about the shack, but lay shivering with fear until dawn; but not for worlds would she have admitted to Manley her dread of staying alone.

She believed it to be necessary, or he would not require it of her, and she wanted to be all that he expected her to be. She was very sensitive, in those days, about doing her whole duty as a wife--the wife of a Western rancher.

For that reason, when Manley shouted to her the news of the fire as he galloped past the shack, and told her to have something for the men to eat when the fire was out, she never thought of demurring, or explaining to him that there was scarcely any wood, and that she could not cook a meal without fuel. Instead, she waved her hand to him and let him go; and when he was quite out of sight she went up to the corrals to see if she could find another useless pole, or a broken board or two which her slight strength would be sufficient to break up with the axe. Till she came to Montana, Val had never taken an axe in her hands; but its use was only one of the many things she must learn, of which she had all her life been ignorant.

There was an old post there, lying beside a rusty, overturned plow. More than once she had stopped and eyed it speculatively, and the day before she had gone so far as to lift an end of it tentatively; but she had found it very heavy, and she had also disturbed a lot of black bugs that went scurrying here and there, so that she was forced to gather her skirts close about her and run for her life.

Where Manley had built his hayrack she had yesterday discovered some ends of planking hidden away in the rank, ripened weeds and gra.s.s. She went there now, but there were no more, look closely as she might. She circled the evil-smelling stable in discouragement, picked up one short piece of rotten board, and came back to the post. As she neared it she involuntarily caught her skirts and held them close, in terror of the black bugs.

She eyed it with extreme disfavor, and finally ventured to poke it with her slipper toe; one lone bug scuttled out and away in the tall weeds. With the piece of board she turned it over, stared hard at the yellowed gra.s.s beneath, discovered nothing so very terrifying after all, and, in pure desperation, dragged the post laboriously down to the place where had been the woodpile. Then, lifting the heavy axe, she went awkwardly to work upon it, and actually succeeded, in the course of half an hour or so, in worrying an armful of splinters off it.

She started a fire, and then she had to take the big zinc pail and carry some water down from the spring before she could really begin to cook anything. Manley's work, every bit of it--but then Manley was so very busy, and he couldn't remember all these little things, and Val hated to keep reminding him. Theoretically, Manley objected to her chopping wood or carrying water, and always seemed to feel a personal resentment when he discovered her doing it. Practically, however, he was more and more often making it necessary for her to do these things.

That is why he returned with the fire fighters and found Val just laying the cloth upon the table, which she had moved into the front room so that there would be s.p.a.ce to seat her guests at all four sides. He frowned when he looked in and saw that they must wait indefinitely, and her cheeks took on a deeper shade of pink.

"Everything will be ready in ten minutes," she hurriedly a.s.sured him. "How many are there, dear?"

"Eight, counting myself," he answered gruffly. "Get some clean towels, and we'll go up to the spring to wash; and try and have dinner ready when we get back--we're half starved." With the towels over his arm, he led the way up to the spring. He must have taken the trail which led past the haystack, for he returned in much better humor, and introduced the men to his wife with the genial air of a host who loves to entertain largely.

Val stood back and watched them file in to the table and seat themselves with a noisy confusion. Unpolished they were, in clothes and manner, though she dimly appreciated the way in which they refrained from looking at her too intently, and the conscious lowering of their voices while they talked among themselves.

They did, however, glance at her surrept.i.tiously while she was moving quietly about, with her flushed cheeks and her yellow-brown hair falling becomingly down at the temples because she had not found a spare minute in which to brush it smooth, and her dainty dress and crisp, white ap.r.o.n. She was not like the women they were accustomed to meet, and they paid her the high tribute of being embarra.s.sed by her presence.

She poured coffee until all the cups were full, replenished the bread plate and brought more b.u.t.ter, and hunted the kitchen over for the can opener, to punch little holes in another can of condensed cream; and she rather astonished her guests by serving it in a beautiful cut-gla.s.s pitcher instead of the can in which it was bought.

They handled the pitcher awkwardly because of their mental uneasiness, and Val shared with them their fear of breaking it, and was guilty of an audible sigh of relief when at last it found safety upon the table.

So perturbed was she that even when she decided that she could do no more for their comfort and retreated to the kitchen, she failed to realize that the one extra plate meant an absent guest, and not a miscount in placing them, as she fancied.