The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories Part 5

Miss Forsyth laughed that sort of laugh which may mean anything you like. "_Knew_ him? Why, we were en--that is, we grew _up_ in the same _town_. I was so perfectly _amazed_ to find him _here_, poor fellow."

"Why poor fellow?" asked Miss Satterly, the direct. "Because you found him? or because he is here?"

The long eyes regarded her curiously. "Why, don't you _know_?

Hasn't--hasn't it _followed_ him?"

"I don't know, I'm sure," said the schoolma'am, calmly facing the stare. "If you mean a dog, he doesn't own one, I believe. Cowboys don't seem to take to dogs; they're afraid they might be mistaken for sheep-herders, perhaps--and that would be a disgrace."

Miss Forsyth leaned back and her eyes, half closed as they were, saw Weary away down by the door. "No, I didn't mean a _dog_. I'm _glad_ if he has gotten _quite away_ from--he's such a _dear_ fellow! Even if he _did_--but I never believed it, you know. If only he had _trusted_ me, and _stayed_ to face-- But he went without telling me _goodbye_, even, and we-- But he was _afraid_, you see--"

Miss Satterly also glanced across to where Weary stood gloomily alone, his hands thrust into his pockets. "I really can't imagine Mr.

Davidson as being afraid," she remarked defensively.

"Oh, but you don't understand! Will is _physically_ brave--and he was afraid I-- but I _believed_ in him, _always_--even when--" She broke off suddenly and became prettily diffident. "I wonder _why_ I am talking to _you_ like this. But there is something so _sympathetic_ in your very _atmosphere_--and seeing _him_ so _unexpectedly_ brought it all _back_--and it seemed as if I _must_ talk to _someone_, or I should _shriek_." (Myrtle Forsyth was often just upon the point of "shrieking") "And he was _so_ glad to see me--and when I _told_ him I never _believed_ a _word_-- But you see, _leaving_ the way he _did_--"

"Well," said Miss Satterly rather unsympathetically, "and how did he leave, then?"

Miss Forsyth twisted her watch chain and hesitated. "I really ought _not_ to say a _word_--if you really don't _know_--what he _did_--"

"If it's to his discredit," said the schoolma'am, looking straight at her, "I certainly don't know. It must have been something awful, judging from your tone. Did he"--she spoke solemnly--"did he _mur-r_der ten people, old men and children, and throw their bodies into--a _well_?"

It is saying much for Miss Forsyth that she did not look as disconcerted as she felt. She did, however, show a rather catty look in her eyes, and her voice was tinged faintly with malice. "There are _other_ crimes--beside--_murder_," she reminded. "I won't tell _what_ it was--but--but _Will_ found it necessary to _leave in the night_! He did not even come to tell _me_ goodbye, and I have--but now we have met by _chance_, and I could _explain_--and so," she smiled tremulously at the schoolma'am, "I _know_ you can _understand_--and you will not _mention_ to _anyone_ what I have told you. I'm too _impulsive_--and I felt _drawn_ to you, somehow. I--I would _die_ if I thought any _harm_ could come to Will because of my _confiding_ in you. A woman," she added pensively, "has so _much_ to bear--and this has been very _hard_--because it was not a thing I could _talk over_--not even with my own _mother_!" Miss Forsyth had the knack of saying very little that was definite, and implying a great deal. This method saved her the unpleasantness of retraction, and had quite as deep an effect is if she came out plainly. She smiled confidingly down at the schoolma'am and went off to waltz with Bert Rogers, apparently quite satisfied with what she had accomplished.

Miss Satterly sat very still, scarce thinking consciously. She stared at Weary and tried to imagine him a fugitive from his native town, and in spite of herself wondered what it was he had done. It must be something very bad, and she shrank from the thought. Then Cal Emmett came up to ask her for a dance, and she went with him thankfully and tried to forget the things she had heard.

Weary, after dancing with every woman but the one he wanted, and finding himself beside Myrtle Forsyth with a frequency that puzzled him, felt an unutterable disgust for the whole thing. After a waltz quadrille, during which he seemed to get her out of his arms only to find her swinging into them again, and smiling up at him in a way he knew of old, he made desperately for the door; s.n.a.t.c.hed up the first gray hat he came to--which happened to belong to Chip--and went out into the dewy darkness.

It was half an hour before he could draw the hostler of the Dry Lake stable away from a c.r.a.p game, and it was another half hour before he succeeded in overcoming Glory's disinclination for a gallop over the prairie alone.

But it was two hours before Miss Forsythe gave over watching furtively the door, and it was daylight before Chip Emmett found a gray hat under the water bench--a hat which he finally recognized as Weary's and so appropriated to his own use.

PART FOUR

Weary clattered up to the school-house door to find it erupting divers specimens of young America--by adoption, some of them. He greeted each one cheerfully by name and waited upon his horse in the shade.

Close behind the last sun-bonnet came Miss Satterly, key in hand.

Evidently she had no intention of lingering, that night; Weary smiled down upon her tentatively and made a hasty guess as to her state of mind--a very important factor in view of what he had come to say.

"It's awful hot, Schoolma'am; if I were you I'd wait a while--till the sun lets up a little."

To his unbounded surprise, Miss Satterly calmly sat down upon the doorstep. Weary promptly slid out of the saddle and sat down beside her, thankful that the step was not a wide one. "You've been unmercifully hard to locate since the dance," he complained. "I like to lost my job, chasing over this way, when I was supposed to be headed another direction. I came by here last night at five minutes after four, and you weren't in sight anywhere; was yesterday a holiday?"

"You probably didn't look in the window," said the schoolma'am. "I was writing letters here till after five."

"With the door shut and locked?"

"The wind blew so," explained Miss Satterly, lamely. "And that lock--"

"First I knew of the wind blowing yesterday. It was as hot as the hubs uh he--as blue blazes when I came by. There weren't any windows up, even--I hope you was real comfortable."

"Perfectly," she a.s.sured him.

"I'll gamble yuh were! Well, and where were yuh cached last Sunday?"

"Nowhere. I went with Bert and Miss Forsyth up in the mountains. We took our lunch and had a perfectly lovely time."

"I'm glad somebody had a good time. I got away at nine o'clock and came over to Meeker's--and you weren't there; so I rode the rim-rocks till sundown, trying to locate yuh. It's easier hunting strays in the Bad Lands."

Miss Satterly seemed about to speak, but she changed her mind and gazed at the coulee-rim.

"It's hard to get away, these days," Weary went on explaining. "I wanted to come before the dance, but we were gathering some stuff out the other way, and I couldn't. The Old Man is shipping, yuh see; we're holding a bunch right now, waiting for cars. I got Happy Jack to stand herd in my place, is how I got here."

The schoolma'am yawned apologetically into her palm. Evidently she was not greatly interested in the comings and goings of Weary Davidson.

"How did yuh like the dance?" he asked, coming to the subject that he knew was the vital point.

"Lovely," said the schoolma'am briefly, but with fervor.

"Different here," a.s.serted Weary. "I drifted, right before supper."

"_Did_ you?" Miss Satterly accented the first word in a way she taught her pupils indicated surprise. "I don't reckon you noticed it. You were pretty busy, about then."

Miss Satterly laughed languid a.s.sent.

"I never knew before that Bert Rogers was any relation of Myrt Forsyth," observed Weary, edging still nearer the vital point. "They sure aren't much alike."

"You used to know her?" asked Miss Satterly, politely.

"Well, I should say yes. I used to go to school with Myrt. How do you like her?"

"Lovely," said Miss Satterly, this time without fervor.

Weary began digging a trench with his spurs. He wished the schoolma'am would not limit herself so rigidly to that one adjective. It became unmeaning with much use, so that it left a fellow completely in the dark.

"Just about everybody says that about her--at first," he remarked.

"Did you?" she asked him, still politely.

"I did a heap worse than that," said Weary, grimly determined. "I had a bad case of calf-love and made a fool uh myself generally."

"What fun!" chirped the schoolma'am with an unconvincing little laugh.

"Not for me, it wasn't. Whilst I had it I used to pack a lock uh that red hair in my breast pocket and heave sighs over it that near lifted me out uh my boots. Oh, I was sure earnest! But she did me the biggest favor she could; a slick-haired piano-tuner come to town and she turned me down for him. I was plumb certain my heart was busted wide open, at the time, though." Weary laughed reminiscently.

"She said--I think you misunderstood her. She appears to--" Miss Satterly, though she felt that she was being very generous, did not quite know how to finish.