Paradise Bend Part 40

I never do, not even when Jim Mace comes in all mud without wipin' his feet. Lord, what trials you men are! I don't really know how we poor women get along sometimes, I don't indeed. Want a drink o' water? Yuh can't have nothin' else. Mis' Burr said yuh couldn't."

"Then I guess that goes as it lays. But I ain't thirsty, an' I don't need nothin'. Honest."

"Yes, yuh do," contradicted Mrs. Mace, gazing critically at him. "Yuh need yore hair brushed. It's all mussed, an' invalids should look neat. Don't start in to sputter. I sha'n't brush yore hair, but I'll tell Kate she's no great shakes for a nurse. Now I think of it, Kate's hair was mussed up some, too. H'm-m-m. What yuh gettin' red about?

No call to blush that I can see. Oh, you men!"

With a significant wink Mrs. Mace whisked kittenishly into the kitchen.

Loudon could hear her lifting stove-lids. He perspired freely. The lady's weighty bantering had raised his temperature.

What a world! Scotty urged him to make love to Dorothy. Mrs. Burr advised him to set matters right with Kate. While Mrs. Mace had everything settled. Between the three of them and his other troubles he believed he would go mad.

CHAPTER XVI

KATE IS HELPFUL

At six o'clock Kate returned.

"It took me longer than I expected," she whispered, Dorothy and Mrs.

Mace being in the kitchen. "It's just as we thought. Our friend, Mr.

O'Leary, was back of the dance. He suggested it to Mrs. Ragsdale, and she got it up.

"I don't believe O'Leary heard any of our conversation. He met me down street and smirked and grinned and tried to invite himself up to see me to-night. But I settled him. I said I'd be busy for the next two weeks. Look here, Tom, don't look so worried. If he heard what we said, don't you suppose he'd leave town immediately? Of course he would. He wouldn't dare stay."

"I ain't so sh.o.r.e about that. He's no fool, Pete O'Leary ain't. He knows there ain't no real evidence against him. We only got suspicions, that's all. Enough for us, all right, but nothin' like enough to land him. No, he wouldn't vamoose right now. That'd give him away. He'll stay an' bluff it through as long as he can. Then, again, if he pulls out he ain't no good to the 88 no more. He's needed up here to let 'em know how things are pannin' out. Say, yuh didn't let them ladies suspicion what yuh was after, did yuh?"

"Of course not. I have a little sense. I made my inquiries quite casually in the course of conversation. Don't fret, they won't have a thing to gossip about."

"That's good. I might 'a' knowed yuh'd be careful."

With a start he realized that he was commending her, actually commending the girl who had once informed him in withering accents that she would never marry an ignorant puncher. Here she was pathetically anxious to execute his every wish. Apparently she had stopped flirting, too.

As she flitted between his room and the kitchen he looked at her out of amazed eyes. Measuring her by her one-time frivolous and coquettish actions, the new Kate was rather astonishing. Man-like, Loudon began to suspect some trap. The lady was too good to be true.

"Bet she's tollin' me on," he told himself. "I'll ask her again, an'

then pop'll go the weasel. No, sirree, I know when I'm well off. As a friend, so long as she acts thisaway, she's ace-high, but I'll bet after marriage she'd develop tempers an' things like that Sue Shimmers girl Scotty told me about. Sh.o.r.e she would. Not a doubt of it.

Yessir, single cussedness for Tom Loudon from now on henceforward.

I'll gamble an' go the limit, it's got double blessedness backed clean off the table."

Lying in bed was not doing Tom Loudon a bit of good. He was fast becoming priggishly cynical. Which att.i.tude of mind may have been natural, but was certainly abominably ungallant.

Long after the others in the house were asleep Loudon lay awake. His brain was busy fashioning plans for the undoing of the 88 outfit. It suddenly struck him that the guileful O'Leary undoubtedly wrote letters. A knowledge of the addresses on those letters was of paramount importance. It would wonderfully simplify matters.

The storekeeper, Ragsdale, was the Bend postmaster. Loudon knew that Ragsdale was not given to idle chatter. He resolved to take Ragsdale into his confidence.

In the morning after breakfast, Kate, first making sure that Mrs. Mace and Dorothy were out of earshot, stooped over the bed.

"Tom," she said, "don't you think I'd better find out whether O'Leary writes any letters and, if he does, to whom he writes them?"

Loudon stared at her in astonishment.

"Huh--how did yuh think o' that?" he blurted out.

"I don't know. It came to me last night. It's a good idea, don't you think?"

"Sh.o.r.e, it's a good idea. I was thinkin' the same thing myself. But don't yuh bother. I'll find out soon's I'm able to get around."

"Don't be silly. You'll be on your back ten days at the least.

O'Leary may write several in the meantime, and the sooner we know about it the better. Now I can find out very easily. Mrs. Ragsdale, the prying soul, reads the addresses on every letter coming in or going out. None ever escapes her eagle eye. And she's a great gossip. I've only seen her half-a-dozen times, but nevertheless she's managed to give me detailed histories of the private lives of most of the inhabitants. She enjoys talking to me because I never interrupt, so you see how simple it will be."

"But I don't like to use you thisaway," objected Loudon. "Yuh've done enough, too much, as it is."

"Nonsense! It will be great fun turning Mrs. Ragsdale's tattlings into useful information. Tattle! Why, she even told me how much you approved of me at the dance. According to her story you came and shouted your opinion into her ear. Did you?"

"I knowed it!" groaned Loudon. "I knowed she'd tell! I only said----"

"Never mind getting red. I didn't mind a bit. I hoped you did like me. I wanted you to."

Here was thin ice. Loudon, pink about the ears, squirmed inwardly.

"I--I," he stuttered, then, with a rush, "yo're doin' too much, I tell yuh. I'll see about these letters when I get up."

"No, you won't. I want to, and I'm going to. It's settled and you needn't argue. I'll go to the postoffice right away. After dinner I'll tell you all about it."

"Wait a minute!" cried Loudon, but Kate was gone.

Loudon had little time to reflect on feminine wilfulness, for Mrs. Mace insisted on spending the morning with him. Dorothy helped her spend it. The buzz of their chatter was lulling. Loudon dozed off and slept till Mrs. Mace awakened him at noon.

"Nice way to treat two ladies," sniffed Mrs. Mace. "Nice way, I must say. Here we come in to entertain yuh while Kate's away and yuh fall asleep, so yuh do. Bet yuh wouldn't have fell asleep if Kate had been here. No, I guess not. You'd have been chipper enough--grinnin' and smilin' all over yore face. But yuh can't even be polite to Dorothy and me."

"Why, ma'am, I----"

"Oh, never mind makin' excuses. We understand. It's all right.

Say"--Mrs. Mace stooped down and guarded one side of her mouth with her hand--"say, when's the weddin' comin' off?"

"Weddin'? What weddin'?"

"Oh, yes, I wonder what weddin'. I do, indeed. Well, of course yuh don't have to tell if yuh don't want to. I'll ask Kate. Dorothy"--she straightened and called over her shoulder--"you can bring in Mr.

Loudon's dinner. He's decided to stay awake long enough to eat it."

He ate his dinner alone, but he did not enjoy it. For, in the kitchen, Dorothy and Mrs. Mace with painful thoroughness discussed all the weddings they had ever seen and made divers thinly veiled remarks concerning a certain marriage that would probably take place in the fall.

"Say," called Loudon, when he could endure their chatter no longer, "say, would yuh mind closin' that door? I got a headache."

Silence in the kitchen for a brief s.p.a.ce of time. Then, in a small demure voice, Mrs. Mace said:

"What was that? I didn't quite catch it."