The Fighting Shepherdess Part 23

"Who told you that?"

"Everyone seems to know it."

Mr. Pantin frowned slightly.

"If you mean Miss Prentice, I wouldn't speak of her in that fashion, Priscilla."

"Mormon Joe's Kate, then, if you like that better," replied Mrs. Pantin, nettled.

"Or 'Mormon Joe's Kate,' either," curtly.

"So sorry; I didn't know you knew her. Do you?"

Mr. Pantin, who at his own table was given the privilege of taking bones in his fingers, pointed the chop at her.

"Let me tell you something, Priscilla," impressively. "Someone who is cleverer than I am has said that it is never safe to snub a pretty girl, because there is always the possibility that she'll marry well and be able to retaliate. The same thing applies to one who has brains and is in earnest. I've made it a rule never to disparage the efforts of a person who had a definite purpose and works to attain it. It's about a fifty-to-one shot that he'll land--sometime."

Mrs. Pantin looked at her husband suspiciously. There were times when she had a notion that she had not explored the furthermost recesses of his nature--when she wondered if it had not ramifications and pa.s.sages unknown to her. It had. It was Mr. Pantin's dearest wish to come home boiling drunk with his hat smashed and his necktie hanging. He longed to kick the front door in and see his wife cower before him. The mental orgies in which he indulged while sitting placidly in the bow window automatically snapping his Romeo against the heel of his foot by a muscular contraction of the toes--would have curdled the blood of Priscilla Pantin.

It was an interesting case of atavism. There was little doubt but that Mr. Pantin was a throwback to a sportive ancestor who had kept a pacer that could do a little better than 2.13 when conditions were favorable, but had rendered the family homeless by betting one hundred and sixty acres of black walnut timber against a horse that left him so far behind that the spectators urged him to throw something overboard to see if he was moving. All this was family history. Mr. Pantin fought against his predilection to gamble on anything or anybody as he would have fought an impulse to take human life.

It did not escape Mrs. Pantin's attention now that her husband had not answered her question as to whether he knew this notorious character.

She repeated it.

Mr. Pantin returned her searching look with one in which she could discern no guile, but his words irritated her still further.

"I happened to be in the bank the other day when the girl was begging Wentz for time on the loan which Mormon Joe had contracted for running expenses," Mr. Pantin explained with somewhat elaborate carelessness.

"It wasn't due, but they were putting the screws on her to serve their own purpose--or Neifkins' purpose, rather. He wants her leases. It was a mistake of judgment, for she would have been a good borrower. Bankers are born, not made, anyway," complacently, "and Vernon isn't one of them."

"It seems to me his judgment in this instance is excellent," Mrs. Pantin contradicted tartly. "It's quite evident the business men of Prouty agree with him, since none of them will trust her."

"That doesn't alter my opinion." Mr. Pantin's reply was calm. "It's the person behind a loan that counts, anyway--not the security. If I had been in Wentz's place when she said she could handle those sheep and meet the obligation when due, I should have believed her." Again Mr.

Pantin waved the chop for emphasis as he added with something very like enthusiasm: "She has honesty, strength of character, intelligence, personal magnetism--"

"It appears to me that you made rather a close study, considering your limited opportunity," Mrs. Pantin interrupted acidly.

"She interested me."

"Evidently. But why this sudden change of opinion? I've heard you say a hundred times that all women are pinheads in business."

"Because she's no ordinary woman," Mr. Pantin defended. "The girl hasn't struck her gait yet; her mind is immature, her character undeveloped; but if she doesn't make good--" he paused while he fumbled for a convincing figure--"I'll eat my panama!"

Mrs. Pantin stared, both at the intemperate language and the rare display of animation. From a state of indifference, she felt distinct hostility toward Mormon Joe's Kate stirring in her bosom. Mr. Pantin should have known better--he did know better--but he had felt reckless, somehow. To make amends he said ingratiatingly:

"This mince pie is excellent, Prissy! Did you tell me there was no meat in it?"

"Tomatoes," frigidly. "It's mock mincemeat." A triumph in economy--an achievement! But Mr. Pantin's flattery and conciliating smile were alike futile. Like many another overzealous partisan, he had made for Kate one more enemy.

It seemed aeons ago to Mrs. Toomey that j.a.p had appeared to her in the light of a handsome conquering daredevil, whose dash and confident personality made all things possible.

The real test of Toomey's character had come with his misfortunes. So long as he had money to spend and could ride, arrogant and high-handed, over the obsequious shopkeepers who benefited by his prodigality, and the poor ranchers who had not the means, or often the spirit, to oppose him, he continued to appear to her in the light in which she had first seen him. She adored his imperious temper, his erratic lavish generosity, his Quixotic standards, but with the reversal of their fortunes she was slowly brought to realize that money had provided most of the glamor which surrounded him. To be imperious with no one to obey makes for absurdity, and this trait, in his poverty, made him ridiculous, as did the extravagances in which he indulged at the expense of necessities.

It was not often Mrs. Toomey would admit to herself the real cause of the heartsickness which filled her as she watched her husband deteriorate, but with every excuse known to a woman who loves she tried to bolster up her waning faith in the man and his ability. With an obstinacy which was pathetic, she endeavored to keep him on the pedestal where she had placed him. She listened with a fixed smile of interest to the extraordinary schemes he outlined to her, sometimes hypnotizing herself into believing in them, until he returned with the exaggerated swagger which proclaimed another failure. Then she would join him in his denunciation of those who could not see the value of his plan and refused to aid him.

But the conviction that j.a.p had not the qualities to win material success did not hurt as did the knowledge that he was not too brave to lie, too proud to borrow from those he considered his social inferiors and with no notion of repaying the obligation, nor too honest to obtain money by any subterfuge that occurred to him.

When she had attempted to borrow money from Abram Pantin, the light esteem in which that astute person held her husband had been as painful as her disappointment, for it was her first definite knowledge of others' estimate of him. Since then, with her eyes opened, she had come to see that j.a.p was regarded in Prouty as something between a joke and a pest.

Mrs. Toomey was thinking of Mormon Joe's murder one morning while she dusted, and of Kate--conjecturing as to what would become of the girl when the bank foreclosed and she lost everything. She sighed as, with the corner of her ap.r.o.n, she removed a smudge from her nose before the mirror. Wasn't there anything in the world any more but trouble for people who had no money?

She glanced casually out of the window and stiffened in something very like horror.

Kate was in front, tying her horse to a transplanted cottonwood sapling.

What if Prissy Pantin should see her! She was visibly agitated, when she opened the door for Kate--stammering a welcome that had a doubtful ring, but Kate did not appear to notice. She looked older, Mrs. Toomey thought, in swift scrutiny. Yes, she had suffered terribly. Her heart went out to the girl, even while she glanced furtively through the windows to see who of the neighbors might be looking.

While Mrs. Toomey wondered what excuse she could make for Kate's presence, if anyone called, she indicated a chair and said nervously:

"I've been hoping to see you and tell you how sorry I am for all that's happened."

"I've been disappointed that you haven't," Kate replied, simply, "for your friendship has loomed like a mountain to me in my trouble."

She was still counting on it! Mrs. Toomey got out a frightened:

"Really?"

"When we shook hands on it up there in the draw," Kate went on, sadly, "I didn't dream how soon or how much I should need you. And women do need each other in trouble, don't they?" earnestly.

Mrs. Toomey nervously tucked in her "scolding locks."

"Er--of course," constrainedly. Her mind was rambling from j.a.p to Mrs.

Pantin and the vigilant neighbors.

Kate rose suddenly, and crossing the room stooped to lay her gloved hand upon Mrs. Toomey's thin shoulders. Looking into her eyes she demanded:

"You don't believe I did it, do you?"

This was a question Mrs. Toomey could answer truthfully and she did, with convincing sincerity:

"No, I don't!"

"I knew it!" There was a joyous note in Kate's voice, and grat.i.tude. "I was sure you were true-blue, and I know I'm going to love you!"

Lifting the woman to her feet, with an arm about her shoulders, Kate kissed her impulsively. She was so slight, so crushable, that Kate experienced a sense of shock as one does when he feels the bones of a little bird through its feathers. Her frailty appealed to something within the girl that was like masculine chivalry, awakening a desire that was keener than ever to protect and help her, while, as before, Mrs. Toomey felt the magnetism of the younger woman's health and strength and courage. Nevertheless, she was panic-stricken at what Kate was taking for granted and her quick little mind was darting about like some frightened rodent from corner to corner, thinking how she was going to disentangle herself from the situation with the minimum of hurt to the girl's feelings.

There was a suggestion of her former buoyancy in Kate's manner. Her eyes had something of their old-time sparkle as she reached inside the blousing front of her flannel shirt and laid in Mrs. Toomey's hand a packet of crisp banknotes secured by bands of elastic.