The Big-Town Round-Up Part 22

"Oh, I'm goin' home Bull-whackin' for to spurn; I ain't got a nickel, And I don't give a dern.

'T is when I meet a pretty girl, You bet I will or try, I'll make her my little wife-- Root hog--"

He broke off embarra.s.sed. "Did I wake you-all, ma'am, with my fool singin'? I'm right sorry if I did."

"You didn't." Kitty, clinging shyly to the side of the doorway, tried to gain confidence from his unease. "I was already awake. Is it a range song you were singing?"

"Yes'm. Cattle range, not kitchen range."

A wan little smile greeted his joke. The effect on Johnnie himself was more p.r.o.nounced. It gave him confidence in his ability to meet the situation. He had not known before that he was a wit and the discovery of it tickled his self-esteem.

"'Course we didn't really clean up no Indians nor drink all the alkali.

Tha's jes' in the song, as you might say." He began to bustle about in preparation for her breakfast.

"Please don't trouble. I'll eat what you've got cooked," she begged.

"It's no trouble, ma'am. If the's a thing on earth I enjoy doin' it's sure cookin'. Do you like yore aigs sunny side up or turned?"

"Either way. Whichever you like, Mr. Green."

"You're eatin' them," Johnnie reminded her with a grin.

"On one side, then, please. Mr. Lindsay says you're a fine cook."

"Sho! I'm no great shakes. Clay he jes' brags on me."

"Lemme eat here in the kitchen. Then you won't have to set the table in the other room," she said.

The puncher's instinct was to make a spread on the dining-table for her, but it came to him with a flash of insight that it would be wise to let her eat in the kitchen. She would feel more as though she belonged and was not a guest of an hour.

While she ate he waited on her solicitously. Inside, he was a river of tears for her, but with it went a good deal of awe. Even now, wan-eyed and hollow-cheeked, she was attractive. In Johnnie's lonesome life he had never before felt so close to a girl as he did to this one.

Moreover, for the first time he felt master of the situation. It was his business to put their guest at her ease. That was what Clay had told him to do before he left.

"You're the doctor, ma'am. You'll eat where you say."

"I--I don't like to be so much bother to you," she said again. "Maybe I can go away this afternoon."

"No, ma'am, we won't have that a-tall," broke in the range-rider in alarm. "We're plumb tickled to have you here. Clay he feels thataway too."

"I could keep house for you while I stay," she suggested timidly. "I know how to cook--and the place does need cleaning."

"Sure it does. Say, wha's the matter with you bein' Clay's sister, jes' got in last night on the train? Tha's the story we'll put up to the landlord if you'll gimme the word."

"I never had a brother, but if I'd had one I'd 'a' wanted him to be like Mr. Lindsay," she told his friend.

"Say, ain't he a go-getter?" cried Johnnie eagerly. "Clay's sure one straight-up son-of-a-gun. You'd ought to 'a' seen how he busted New York open to find you."

"Did he?"

Johnnie told the story of the search with special emphasis on the night Clay broke into three houses in answer to her advertis.e.m.e.nt.

"I never wrote it. I never thought of that. It must have been--"

"It was that scalawag Durand, y'betcha. I ain't still wearin' my pinfeathers none. Tha's who it was. I'm not liable to forget him. He knocked me h.e.l.l-west and silly whilst I wasn't lookin'. He was sore because Clay had fixed his clock proper."

"So you've fought on account of me too. I'm sorry." There was a little break in her voice. "I s'pose you hate me for--for bein' the way I am. I know I hate myself." She choked on the food she was eating.

Johnnie, much distressed, put down the coffee-pot and fluttered near.

"Don't you take on, ma'am. I wisht I could tell you how pleased we-all are to he'p you. I hope you'll stay with us right along. I sure do.

You'd be right welcome," he concluded bashfully.

"I've got no place to go, except back home--and I've got no folks there but a second cousin. She doesn't want me. I don't know what to do.

If I had a woman friend--some one to tell me what was best--"

Johnnie slapped his hand on his knee, struck by a sudden inspiration.

"Say! Y'betcha, by jollies, I've got 'er--the very one! You're d.a.m.n--you're sure whistlin'. We got a lady friend, Clay and me, the finest little pilgrim in New York. She's sure there when the gong strikes. You'd love her. I'll fix it for you--right away. I got to go to her house this afternoon an' do some ch.o.r.es. I'll bet she comes right over to see you."

Kitty was doubtful. She did not want to take any strange young women into her confidence until she had seen them. More than one good Pharisee had burned her face with a look of scornful contempt in the past weeks.

"Maybe we better wait and speak to Mr. Lindsay about it," she said.

"No, ma'am, you don't know Miss Beatrice. She's the best friend." He pa.s.sed her the eggs and a confidence at the same time. "Why, I shouldn't wonder but what she and Clay might get married one o' these days. He thinks a lot of her."

"Oh." Kitty knew just a little more of human nature than the puncher.

"Then I wouldn't tell her about me if I was you. She wouldn't like my bein' here."

"Sho! You don't know Miss Beatrice. She grades 'way up. I'll bet she likes you fine."

When Johnnie left to go to work that afternoon he took with him a resolution to lay the whole case before Beatrice Whitford. She would fix things all right. No need for anybody to worry after she took a hand and began to run things. If there was one person on earth Johnnie could bank on without fail it was his little boss.

CHAPTER XVIII

BEATRICE GIVES AN OPTION

It was not until Johnnie had laid the case before Miss Whitford and restated it under the impression that she could not have understood that his confidence ebbed. Even then he felt that he must have bungled it in the telling and began to marshal his facts a third time. He had expected an eager interest, a quick enthusiasm. Instead, he found in his young mistress a spirit beyond his understanding. Her manner had a touch of cool disdain, almost of contempt, while she listened to his tale. This was not at all in the picture he had planned.

She asked no questions and made no comments. What he had to tell met with chill silence. Johnnie's guileless narrative had made clear to her that Clay had brought Kitty home about midnight, had mixed a drink for her, and had given her his own clothes to replace her wet ones.

Somehow the cattleman's robe, pajamas, and bedroom slippers obtruded unduly from his friend's story. Even the Runt felt this. He began to perceive himself a helpless medium of wrong impressions. When he tried to explain he made matters worse.

"I suppose you know that when the manager of your apartment house finds out she's there he'll send her packing." So Beatrice summed up when she spoke at last.

"No, ma'am, I reckon not. You see we done told him she is Clay's sister jes' got in from the West," the puncher explained.

"Oh, I see." The girl's lip curled and her clean-cut chin lifted a trifle. "You don't seem to have overlooked anything. No, I don't think I care to have anything to do with your arrangements."