The Huntress Part 14

Husky was now looking forward to her return no less than the others.

He had taken a turn for the better, and no longer thought of dying.

After supper a high degree of amity prevailed in the shack. Joe and Shand helped with the chair, and then they all planned to make a table next day.

"Shand, lend a hand with this piece while I drive a nail, will you?"

requested Jack politely.

"Sure thing! Say this is going to be out o' sight! You certainly have a good knack of making things, Jack."

"Oh, so-so. I ought to have a flat piece to put on the seat."

"I'll go out to the stable and see if I can find a box-cover."

"You stay here. I'll go," said Joe.

Sam, washing the dishes, harkened to this, and smiled a little grimly to himself, wondering how long it would last.

They retired early. The bed was given up to Husky, and the other four rolled up in their blankets across the room like a row of mummies.

Calm brooded over the shack throughout the night.

Sam had not had so much time as the others to make himself presentable the night before, so he got up extra early for that purpose. Issuing out of the shack with soap, towel, razor, and gla.s.s, the first thing he beheld on rounding the shack was Bela. She was kneeling on a piece of wood to protect her knees from the wet ground, tearing and rolling some pieces of cotton for bandages.

She was dressed differently to-day--all in buckskin.

The newly risen sun was behind her, shooting misty beams across a lake of mother-of-pearl. The artist, latent in every man, arrested Sam, forcing him to wonder and admire.

Bela looked up calmly. "I waitin' till the men get up," she remarked.

"I'll call them," he offered, making a move to turn.

"Let them sleep," commanded Bela. "It is early."

Sam became uncomfortably conscious of his unkempt condition. "You caught me unawares," he said. "I haven't washed up yet."

She glanced at him sidewise. Had he known it, he did not appear altogether at a disadvantage with his fair hair tousled and his shirt open at the throat.

"I don't care," she said, with a child's air of unconcern.

Presently she caught sight of the razor. "You got hair grow on your chin, too? That is fonny thing. Ot'er day I watch the curly-head one sc.r.a.pe his face. He not see me. What for you want sc.r.a.pe your face?"

Sam blushed. "Oh, it looks like a hobo if you don't," he stammered.

She repeated the word with a comical face. "What is hobo?"

"Oh, a tramp, a loafer, a b.u.m."

"I on'erstan'," she said. "We got hoboes, too. My mot'er's 'osban' is a hobo."

She looked at his chin again. "Bishop Lajeunesse not sc.r.a.pe his chin,"

she stated. "Got long hair, so. He is fine man."

Sam, not knowing exactly what to say, remained silent. He found it difficult to accommodate himself to a conversational Bela. She was much changed in the morning light from the inscrutable figure of the fire-side. Ten times more human and charming, it is true, but on that account the more disconcerting to a young man, without experience of the s.e.x. Moreover, her beauty took his breath away. Bela watched his blushes with interest.

"What mak' your face hot?" she asked. "There is no fire."

He could not but believe she was making fun of him. "Ah! cut it out!"

he growled.

"White men fonny," said Bela, rolling her strips of cotton.

"Funny!" repeated Sam. "How about you? Hanged if you're not the strangest thing I ever came across."

Obviously this did not displease her. She merely shrugged.

He forgot some of his self-consciousness in his curiosity. "Where do you come from?" he asked, drawing nearer. "Where do you go to?"--"You wonderful creature!" his eyes added.

"No magic," she said calmly. "I just plain girl."

"Why wouldn't you tell them how you got out night before last?"

"Maybe I want get out again."

"Will you tell me?"

She glanced at him provokingly through her lashes. "Why I tell you?

You just go tell your partners."

"They're no partners of mine," said Sam bitterly. "I should think you could see that. I'm just their cook. I work for my grub. They don't let me forget it either."

"Why you come to this country?" asked Bela.

"I want a piece of land the same as they do. But I've got to work to earn an outfit before I can settle."

"When you get your land what you do then?" she asked.

"Build a house, raise crops."

"White man all want land to dig," said Bela wonderingly.

"You've got to have land," explained Sam eagerly. "You've got to have something of your own. Outside, a poor man has no chance nowadays but to slave away his best years working for a rich man."

Bela studied his face, trying to grasp these ideas so new to her.

"How did you get out of the shack?" Sam asked her again.

"I tell you," she said abruptly. "I climb the chimney."

"By George!" he exclaimed admiringly.