The Land of Strong Men Part 11

"That will be plenty of that sort of thing," Angus told him. "Let go, now, and don't pull me about."

But Blake, being surly and quarrelsome even when sober, gave the lapel a savage jerk, and reached out with his other hand. Angus caught his wrist, and brought a stiffened forearm across his throat. At the same moment he stepped forward, crooked his right leg behind Blake's left knee and threw his full weight against him. Blake went down hard, but was up in an instant and made a staggering rush. Angus dodged.

"Take care of him, you!" he said to Garland. "I don't want to hit him."

Blake's friends closed in on him, and Angus made his escape. He was glad to get clear so easily, for he had no mind to be mixed up in a fight on the street. He hooked up the colts and drove down to the landing, hearing as he did so the deep bellow of the river steamer's whistle.

When he got the colts tied and went out on the wharf the boat had already docked. Behind a group of pa.s.sengers a girl was bending over a couple of grips. Her back was toward Angus, and never doubting that it was Jean, he reached down with one hand for a grip, while he slipped his other arm around her waist.

"h.e.l.lo, old girl!" he said. But to his utter amazement, as she snapped erect in the crook of his arm, it was not Jean at all. This girl was taller, black of hair and blue of eye. For a moment he did not recognize her, and then he knew her for Kathleen French, whom he had not seen for more than a year. "Oh," he said blankly, "it's you!"

"I think so," she said dryly. "I can stand without being held, thanks."

Angus dropped his arm from her waist, blushing.

"I thought you were Jean. I'm awfully sorry."

Kathleen French's dark blue eyes looked him up and down, and to his relief she seemed more amused than angry.

"But your sister wasn't on the boat. It's nice to be welcomed by somebody." She frowned, glancing down the wharf. "Have you seen any of my brothers? Somebody should be here to meet me."

"Blake is in town. I haven't seen any of the other boys."

"Then why isn't Blake here?" she demanded.

"I don't know," Angus returned. "It's not my fault, is it?"

"No, of course not. He was to be here--or somebody was--and drive me out. I suppose I'll have to go somewhere and wait his pleasure. Where is he, do you know?"

"Why--" Angus began doubtfully, and stopped.

"Look here," said Kathleen French, "has Blake been drinking?"

"I think he could drive all right."

"Pig! Brute!" Blake's sister e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed viciously. "He couldn't keep sober, even to meet me. Didn't think I mattered, I suppose. I'll show him. Able to drive, is he? Well, he isn't able to drive me. I'll get a livery rig."

"I will drive you out."

"That's good of you. But it's out of your way."

"It will do the colts good--take the edge off them. But I don't know what to do about Jean. She was to have come on this boat."

"She must have missed it. Likely she will be on the next."

This seemed probable. As there was nothing to be done about it, Angus went for Kathleen's trunk. He wheeled it on a truck to the rig, picked it up and deposited it in the wagon back of the seat without apparent effort. As the trunk went up Kathleen French's eyes widened a little. He turned to her.

"The step is broken and if you climb in the mud will get on your dress,"

he said. "I had better lift you over the wheel, if you don't mind."

"Of course I don't mind."

He lifted her up as one holds a child aloft to see a pa.s.sing parade, until her feet set on top of the wheel. As she seated herself she glanced at him with a queer expression of puzzlement. He unhitched the colts, gathered up the lines and came up over the wheel beside her. As he dropped into the seat the team got away with a plunge and they went townward with slack tugs, the reins and Angus' arms pulling the load.

"They're a little frisky," he said. "They'll be all right when they get out of town."

"You don't think I'm afraid, do you?" she said.

"No, I guess you are not nervous of horses."

Angus hoped they would see nothing of Blake. But as they clattered up the main street, the colts dancing and fighting the bits and Angus holding them with a double wrap and talking to them steadily to quiet them, Blake and his companions were crossing from one side to the other.

He recognized Angus and his sister, and probably remembered that he was to meet her. With the memory of his recent encounter surging in his fogged brain he lurched out into the roadway and called on Angus to stop; and as the latter did not do so, he made an unsteady rush for the colts' heads.

Just then Angus could not have stopped the colts if he had wished to, and he did not wish it. He knew that if Blake got hold of them it meant a wrangle on the street, and so he loosed a wrap and clicked a sharp command. The colts went into their collars with a bound.

As they did so Kathleen French reached swiftly across and plucked the whip from its socket on the dash. Angus had time for just one glance.

The nigh forewheel was just grazing Blake, so that he jumped back. His flushed, scowling face was upturned, his mouth open in imprecation. Then with a vicious swish and crack the lash of the blacksnake curled down over his head and shoulders, and he went out of sight.

Angus was too fully occupied with the colts to look back. They missed a wagon and a buggy by inches merely, and were a mile out of town before he was able to pull them down to an ordinary gait; and he was in no sweet temper at them, at Blake, and even at Blake's sister; for that young lady's swishing cut with the whip had put the finishing touch to the colts' nerves.

Kathleen herself had not uttered a word, nor had she grasped the seat rail, even when in danger of collision. Now she sat upright, an angry color in her cheeks, her mouth set in a straight line, and the whip still in her hand. She met Angus' eyes with a defiant stare.

"Well?" she said.

"I didn't say anything."

"You're thinking a lot, though."

"Am I?"

"Yes, you are! And don't you say a word of it to me. I can't stand it."

"I am not going to say anything," Angus told her, and stared ahead over the colts' ears, in which companionable fashion they drove for nearly two miles. Then he felt her hand on his arm.

"I'm sorry, Angus. I was utterly rude. Let it go, won't you?"

"Of course," he a.s.sented. "I wasn't any too polite myself. The team nearly got away from me."

"And then you think I shouldn't have taken the whip to Blake."

"You might have taken an ax to him for all I'd care," Angus admitted.

"h.e.l.lo!" she said. "Have you had any trouble with Blake?"

"No real trouble." He told her what had occurred.

"Well, I'm glad I used the whip," she commented. "He won't be proud of it--before his friends. Wait till I see the boys! A nice lot, sending Blake--Blake!--to meet me." Her teeth clicked over the words. "I suppose," she went on bitterly after a pause, "there's a black sheep in every family. But in some families--What do you think of our family?"

Angus stared at her. He had never thought much about the Frenches, who were outside his...o...b..t. Being young, one side of him had at times envied their easy life; but another side of him held for them the grim, bitter scorn of the worker for the idler and waster. These things, however, were far below the surface.