The Dual Alliance Part 12

"Sure you can find the way alone?"

She made a face at him. As she waded for the bank she addressed the fish that sped by her: "Go over and bite him!" Slopping water at every step she started for camp. When she saw he was watching her, she threw a shower of drops with a quick turn of her body.

"Automatic fire extinguisher!" she called back. His laugh answered her.

"That man has a nice laugh," she confided to the woods.

Bill received her with whoops of joy, and set to work to dry her out.

"You know how to make people very comfortable, Bill. Are you married?"

she asked him.

"Not jest now."

"Does that mean that you have been or you're going to be?"

"I had a wife fer a while, but she lit out with a logger thet played the fiddle."

"Well, did you just let her go?"

"Sure, she was gone when I heard 'bout it."

"That was tough," she commiserated him.

"Oh, I don't know. She didn't like it on a ranch. I got her in a mining camp, so natcherlly she thought it was slow out here. She was used to a shootin' or two on Sat'day nights."

"Think of not liking it here!"

"Wa'al, my likin' ain't your likin', ye know; no two the same. If I cud have played the fiddle, an ef I'd a had a h.e.l.lofa temper, I might a kep'

her. But there ye are."

"You don't know where she is?"

"Nope."

"You don't miss her?"

"Not so's ye'd notice."

"You didn't have any children?"

"Nope. Now let's talk about somethin' cheerful, like a lynchin'."

She begged for a tale of his gold-mining days. He was usually a silent man, but once or twice over the fire at night they had succeeded in unlocking his lips, and from that time on his colourful cowboy language had delighted Barbara. At first he had been a little shy of her, but now they were fast friends. He always mentioned her to Trent as "the little feller," and he admitted that "she was the best all-round woman exhibit he ever saw."

He had just reached the climax of his adventure when Paul came into camp. Barbara, wrapped in a blanket, sat beside the fire, while her clothes hung on the line behind her. Her face was alive with response to Bill's oratory.

"I grabbed him round the middle, an' I sw.a.n.g him over my head, an' I sot him down so hard it jarred his ancestors," said he. Barbara's laugh greeted the phrase and Paul stalked in on them.

"How is the little feller?" he asked.

"He has to stay in a barrel till his duds dries out," said Bill. "He furgot to hang his clothes on the hickory-nut limb."

"I've had the time of my life, listening to Bill. He knows more good stories than anybody in the world."

"Listen at her! She's stringin' ye, Mr. Trent." He strode off to take in the clothes, big with pride.

"Think you'll take cold?" asked Paul.

"Cold? The only way a cold could get me would be to bite me. I'm the wellest thing on earth."

"Broadway won't know you, you're so brown," he commented, looking down at her.

"Broadway? What's that?"

"A state of mind," he laughed.

The days slid by with incredible swiftness. They extended their holiday twice to please Bill, who insisted on some special expeditions. A descent upon the cabin in the valley found a pile of mail awaiting them.

"Shall we burn it without opening it?" Trent asked her.

"And never go back?" she challenged him.

"And never go back," he answered gravely.

"Your proposition interests me," she said to lessen the tension. "This is a call to rehearsal." She held up the envelope.

"And this is a summons from my party leaders," he remarked, matching her envelope with his.

"What do you say, Barbara? Work or bolt?"

She looked at him steadily for a long moment, then slit her envelope. He lifted his eyebrows slightly and began on his letters.

"My call is for Monday. When is yours?" she said presently.

"Mine is urgent, but Monday in New York is soon enough. That means we must leave here Friday morning."

"This is Tuesday night. Let's go up once more, and come down Thursday night. We can pack in an hour. Let's say good-bye to it, up there."

"Good-bye to what?"

"To the mountains."

So it was arranged, and they set out on their last climb. The weather was uncertain but Bob would hear of no postponement.

"It seems as if we had always spent our days like this, as if we always would," she said as they rode.

"But you wouldn't like that."