The Sheriff of Badger Part 13

"Huh! I reckon so. He done married Sarah last year and run off and left her on my hands. Hush--best to get away quiet. If she hears he's here, there'll be no holding of Sarah."

"That's all," said Lafe, and the door banged in their faces.

"Now," he said to Harris, "you hit for foreign sh.o.r.es. I start shooting at forty. Quick."

This does not pretend to be an exact reproduction of the sheriff's speech, because he had an honest man's loathing and contempt for this kind of male. But it is the gist of his words. The procurer made the first hundred yards in fifteen seconds flat, so the sheriff speeded his count, lest he get out of range. The satisfaction was accorded him of dusting Jackson's heels as he ran, and Lafe repaired to the Cowboys'

Rest in a better frame of mind.

"She ain't here," the landlord told him. "She's done gone."

The sheriff found her at the Fashion. "You reckon you're a married woman, I take it, ma'am?'" he inquired cheerily.

"I married him in El Paso. Yes, I had to. He'd paid my fare. Yes, I do."

"Well, you ain't," said Lafe. "He's got one wife already that I know of, that fine gen'l'man, and probably bunches more, besides."

She thought this over for a minute. There was no surprise; neither was there any of the joy he had antic.i.p.ated; and no sign of reaction or tears.

CHAPTER XIII

AND HETTY COMES TO BADGER TO LIVE

"Where is she?" she asked.

"Who? This wife? Oh, over beyond. Not so very far from here. You won't never see her," was the careless reply.

Again she appeared to ponder what he said. A slight shiver was quickly repressed. At last: "So that's what he is? You reckon--"

"Where's your outfit, ma'am?" the sheriff interrupted.

"My trunk? It's here. I've taken a room."

They were in the parlor of the Fashion, one flight above the street. It was sumptuously furnished, the proprietor taking pride in his establishment--a red plush sofa, a table, three chairs, and a cottage-organ. On the wall was a chromo lithograph of a girl clinging to a wave-swept pillar of stone. This was ent.i.tled "Rock of Ages."

Thereupon she told him her story. Of course Lafe did not believe half of what she said, although he gave ear gravely to her direct manner of replying to his questions. The girl's self-possession and cool disregard of the extremity to which she was reduced, suggested only one explanation to his mind--ripe experience. He had never encountered these traits among ladies of domestic virtues.

Her name was Hetty Ferrier, and Miss Ferrier had exactly eleven dollars and seventy cents. She had lived in Eau Claire, but went to Chicago to make a fortune and to marry a rich, handsome youth, as girls starting out in the world invariably do. There she got a job in a department store, where they paid her four dollars and a half a week to keep soul and body together, though subsequently little consideration was shown for her soul. When she parried the a.s.sistant manager's attentions she was removed from the lace counter to the hardware department, but she did not care. Then she fell ill; for breakfast foods, wetted with watery milk and eaten in a room opening on hot, slate roofs, are not a sustaining diet when one stands all day on one's feet. So she was sent back home from the hospital. And her parents were miserably poor. Her father had borrowed the money to bring her home. She began reading advertis.e.m.e.nts again, and finally answered one of the matrimonial variety.

That was all. This man Jackson replied to her, and his letters were very nice--those of a perfect gentleman, Miss Ferrier a.s.sured the sheriff.

Then he sent the money, and she journeyed to El Paso. He was not what she had expected, but he treated her decently when he met her at the train. Furthermore, he could be very amusing and "splendid company," she said; so she went through a ceremony with him. After that he went away to get tickets, and when he came back, he was drunk. She was frightened and sat up all night in a day coach, and he went to sleep in a Pullman, waking up sometimes to order the porter to tell her to go to sleep at once. When they got out, he said they would take the stage to Badger, where he had some business to transact, and then go on to Nogales.

The sheriff pressed for fuller information. Had she no friends while working in the city? Yes, she knew some of the girls, but they were always scheming for a good time, and she never had any money. The nicest ones lived at home, but not all of them. Several young men had been kind to her and had taken her to theaters. But they usually tried to get fresh, said Miss Ferrier. Some appeared to have heaps of money, but others worked for it as she did, only they spent it with princely recklessness on pay night.

There was one--she came to a full stop. Yes, she would tell him about that one, too. He was very poor. Indeed, he dressed so shabbily that the girls t.i.ttered when he called to meet her at the employes' entrance. No; he treated her all right and was always respectful. She liked him because he was very good, and different. He was a student and was working his way through college by waiting in a dining-hall. They had hoped to marry some day. Then she got sick and went home. It would have taken years, anyway. She seemed never to have regarded the prospect with much hope.

"Uh-huh!" said the sheriff, when she had finished. "And what do you aim to do now?"

"I don't know. What can I do? Get a job as waitress, I guess."

She appeared undistressed by the prospect, but it was the apathy of countless failures and physical exhaustion.

"No," he said with decision. "You're a heap too pretty for that."

"You think so?" she asked indifferently.

"You bet I do." It was Lafe Johnson who was talking now, and not the sheriff of Badger. They were alone in the parlor. He watched her for a moment. Her profile was turned to him and her att.i.tude was one of tired acquiescence with the stress of her situation. He hitched his chair forward close to hers.

"Say," he said, lowering his voice, "you forget this here Harris and all that, and throw in with me. I'll treat you good."

"How--throw in with you?"

"Why, you know. I'll take you over to a li'l' place I've got beyond the Willows. It's right pretty. We'll--"

"I wonder," said Miss Ferrier, without a trace of resentment, "I wonder if there's more than one man on earth who isn't a brute?"

"I don't take you, ma'am."

"What difference is there between you and the others? How're you better than this fellow you ran off--this Jackson?" she demanded, with her first display of animation. "You've got nothing on him."

"Say, you quit that. Quit that right now. I don't make my living--"

"And neither do I, Mr. Johnson. So put that in your pipe and smoke it."

She jumped to her feet and went out before he could prevent her. Johnson heard the bolt of her room jerked into place, and then he went downstairs, whistling a casual air. The barkeeper brought a tried judgment to bear on these symptoms and furtively closed one eye at the proprietor.

"Humph," said Lafe, when he was outside and walking toward the cattle company's corral. "She can give any woman I ever done met up with, cards and spades at a bluff."

Yet he was seized of qualms. It was the first time in his tenure of office that the man had triumphed over the official in any respect whatsoever. He had done his work with a single eye to duty, and without prejudice; and he had done it well. Nor was he given to pursuit of this nature. The girl made a tremendous physical appeal to him, and of course all that about the a.s.sistant manager and those other fellows was pure fiction. Lafe knew women of her stamp better than that.

He was low in spirits all afternoon, and about sunset invaded the bar of the Cowboys' Rest.

"I'm going to get pickled," he announced, "not real drunk, you understand. Nothing vulgar, but just nice and quiet. Here's my gun. I reckon Badger'll run itself for a day or two."

"It's sure a-coming to you, Lafe," said the landlord. "You've been sober for a right smart spell."

In the morning he felt very rocky, for the refreshment they provide in Badger would stagger the oldest man in the world; and he could hear bands playing in unlooked-for places. So he gave over in disgust all thought of further carnival and went to the Fashion for breakfast, knowing of old that a hearty meal would set him right.

Miss Ferrier waited on him. So she had secured the job! The barkeeper told Lafe that she got it so quick it made his hair curl, and she was sure a waitress.

"She's got the rollers under the ol' man," he said. "He'll eat out of her hand. Say, business ought to pick up. Don't you reckon?"

a.s.suredly it did. All the unattached men of Badger developed a taste for the corncakes served at the Fashion. One of the Anvil boys happened to ride into town for a new pair of boots, and took dinner there. What he narrated on his return kept an entire outfit sleepless far into the night, planning methods of getting a day off, and it is on record that twenty-seven extra meals were served in as many days to gentlemen who smelled healthily of horse and walked to a merry jingle of spurs. Hetty treated all alike and was a paragon of waitresses. All aspired to be admirers. The majority were shy and ill at ease, given to staring at the menu with gla.s.sy, uncomprehending eyes; but there did not lack doughty ones. They lost their courage completely, however, when it came to finishing what they began, in face of her calmly amused smile.

Yet she did not come off scatheless. They were lavish in their invitations, and horses were thrust at her as gifts, like so many boxes of chocolates. She was anxious to learn to bestride a horse, and when she had acquired the knack, Hetty readily accepted several proposals for rides up the valley. Then she abruptly discontinued them; for, fired by what they had heard, her escorts grew bold. Two she repulsed successfully, and followed that up with lashings of a quirt, but the third achieved her waist and lips. He got small satisfaction for his trouble. Her chilling surrender to his kiss when she felt herself helpless, took all the eagerness of the conqueror out of him. The cowboy was miserably penitent on the way home and later announced that he would bet everything he had, inclusive of socks, that Miss Ferrier was the finest girl in town and could lay it over any lady of his acquaintance.