A COMEDY--AND SOMETHING ELSE
Towards noon one day a week later Steele Weir, headed for Bowenville
in his car, had gained Chico Creek, half way between camp and San
Mateo, when he perceived that another machine blocked the ford. About
the wheels of the stalled car the shallow water rippled briskly, four
or five inches deep; entirely deep enough, by all appearances, to keep
marooned in the runabout the girl sitting disconsolately at the
wheel.
She was a very attractive-looking girl, Steele noted casually as he
brought his own car to a halt and sprang out to join her, wading the
water with his laced boots. As he approached he perceived that she had
a slender well-rounded figure, fine-spun brown hair under her hat
brim, clear brown eyes and the pink of peach blossoms in her soft
smooth cheeks.
But her look of relief vanished when she distinguished his face and
her shoulders squared themselves.
"Has your engine stopped?" he inquired.
"Yes."
"I'll look into the hood."
"I prefer that you would not."
For an instant surprise marked his countenance.
"You mean that you desire to remain here?" he asked.
"I don't wish to remain here, but I choose that in preference to your
aid."
The man, who had bent forward to lift one cover of the engine,
straightened up at that. He considered her intently and in silence
for a time, marking her heightened color, the haughty poise of her
head, the firm set of her lips.
"To my knowledge, I never saw you before in my life," he remarked at
last. "What, may I ask, is your particular reason for declining my
services?"
She was dumb for a little, while she tucked back a stray tendril of
hair. The act was performed with the left hand; and Weir's eyes, which
seldom missed anything, observed a diamond flash on the third finger.
"Well, I'd choose not to explain," said she, afterwards, "but if you
insist----"
"I don't insist, I merely request ... your highness."
A flash of anger shot from her eyes at this irony.
"Don't think I'm afraid to tell you!" she cried. "It's because you're
the manager of the construction camp; and if you've never seen me
before, I've at least had you pointed out to me. I wish no assistance
from the man who turns off his poor workmen without excuse or warning,
and brings want and trouble upon the community. It was like striking
them in the face. And then you break your promise not to bring in
other workmen!"
As she had said, she did not lack courage. Her words gushed forth in a
torrent, as if an expression of pent up and outraged justice,
disclosing a fervent sympathy and a fine zeal--and, likewise, a fine
ignorance of the facts.
"Well, why don't you say something?" she added, when he gave no
indication of replying.
Steele could have smiled at this feminine view of the matter that
violent assertions required affirmations or denials.
"What am I supposed to say?" he asked.
Apparently that exhausted her patience.
"You'll please molest me no longer," she stated, icily.
"Very well."
He raised the hood and inspected the engine. During his attempts to
start it, she sat nonchalantly humming an air and gazing at the
mountains as if her mind were a thousand miles away--which it was
not.
"Something wrong; it will have to be hauled in," said he finally.
No reply. Steele returned to his own car and descending into the creek
bed worked his way around her. When he was on the far bank, he
rejoined her again, carrying a coil of rope. One end of this he
fastened securely to the rear axle of her runabout.
"What are you going to do, sir?" she demanded, whirling about on her
seat and glaring angrily.
"Drag you out."
"You'll do nothing of the kind!"
"Oh, yes," was his calm response.
"Against my wishes, sir?"
"Certainly."
"This is abominable!"
"Perhaps."
"I'll put on the brakes." And put them on she did, with a savage
jerk.
But nevertheless Weir's powerful machine drew her car slowly up out of
the creek upon the road, where he forced it about until it pointed
towards San Mateo. Then he retied the rope on the front axle.
"Now for town," said he.
"Why did you haul me out of there, I demand to know?"
"Why? Because you were a public obstruction blocking traffic. If you
had remained there long enough you would have become a public
nuisance; and it's the duty of every citizen to abate nuisances. No
one would call you a nuisance, of course,--not to your face, at any
rate. But travelers might have felt some annoyance if compelled to
drive around you; they might even have had you arrested when they
learned you were acting out of willful stubbornness."
In a sort of incredulous wonder, of charmed horror, the girl heard
herself thus unfeelingly described.
"You--you barbarian!" she cried.
"Ready? We're off for town now."
"I'll run my car in the ditch and wreck it if you so much as pull it
another inch!"
"I don't like to be frustrated in my generous acts; they are so few,
according to common report. Well, we'll leave the car, but it must be
drawn off the road."
When this was accomplished, Weir replaced the rope in his machine.
Then he returned to her.
"What now? Do you intend to sit here in the hot sunshine, to say
nothing of missing your dinner?"
"That doesn't concern you."
Weir shook his head gravely.
"You must be saved from your own folly," said he.
Before she had realized what was happening, he had opened the door of
the runabout, swung her out upon the ground and was marching her
towards his own machine. Stupefaction at this quick, atrocious deed
left her an automaton; and before she had fully regained her control
they were speeding towards San Mateo, she at his side.
"This is outrageous!" she gasped.
Steele Weir did not speak until they entered town.
"Where is your home?" he asked.
"Turn to the right at the end of the street."
It was before a house of modern structure, banked with a bewildering
number of flowers and shaded by trees, that he halted the car. He
alighted, bared his head, assisted her to descend, bowed and then
without a word drove away, leaving her to stare after him with a
baffling mixture of feelings and the single indignant statement, "And
he didn't even wait long enough for me to thank him!" Nor did her
perplexity lessen when her car was left before the door during the
afternoon by one of the camp mechanics to whom Weir had telephoned
from San Mateo and who had put it in running order.
Weir himself proceeded to Bowenville, where matters regarding
shipments and the unloading of machinery engaged him the rest of the
day. Into his mind, however, there floated at moments the image of the
girl's face, banish it as he would. He had learned her name by asking
who was the owner of the house where she had alighted, information
necessary to direct the mechanic as to the delivery of the stalled
car. Hosmer it was; and the residence was that of Dr. Hosmer.
Presumably she was his daughter. And what a vivid, charming,
never-surrender enemy! Lucky the chap who had won this high-spirited
girl.
The memory of her eyes and her personality was still with him when
he ate his supper that evening in a restaurant in Bowenville. His own
past in relation to the other sex had been starred by no love
affair, not even by episodes of a sentimental nature; the character of
his work had for long periods kept him away from women's society,
but further than this there was the shadow upon his life, the shadow
of mystery that obliged him to follow a solitary course. He
considered himself unfree to seek friendships or favors among women.
By every demand of honor he was bound to solicit no girl's trust or
affection until that mystery was cleared and his father's innocence
established. It was for this reason that he seemed even to himself to
grow more hard, more harsh, more silent and aloof, until at last he
had come to believe that no fair face had the power to arouse his
interest or to quicken his pulse.
But now, this girl he had met at the ford!
Long-stifled emotions struggled in his breast. Sleeping desires awoke.
His spirit swelled like a caged thing within the shell of years of
indurated habit. A strange restlessness pervaded him. He had a fierce
passion somehow to rip in pieces the gray drab pattern of his
commonplace life.
Perhaps it was this revolt against the fetters of fate that caused him
to welcome the chance for action that presently was offered. The
restaurant was of an ordinary type, with a lunch counter at one side,
a row of tables down the middle and half a dozen booths along the wall
offering some degree of privacy. In one of these Steele Weir was
smoking a cigar and finishing his coffee before making his ride back
to camp. From the booth adjoining he had for some time been hearing
scraps of conversation; now all at once the voices rose in protest and
in answering explanation, in perplexed appeal and earnest assurance.
Weir's own reflections ceased. His head turned and remained fixed to
listen, while the cigar grew cold between his fingers. For ten minutes
or so his attitude of concentrated harkening to the two voices, a
girl's and a man's, remained unchanged. Little by little he was
piecing out the thread of the confidential dialogue--and of the little
drama being enacted in the booth.
His brows became lowering as he gathered its significance, his lips
drew together in a tight thin line. He did not move when he heard the
man push back his chair to leave the place, nor alter his position
until there came the sound of the door closing at the front of the
restaurant. Then he reached for his hat, stood up and went lightly
around into the other booth, where he pulled the green calico curtain
across the opening.
A girl of about seventeen, of plump clean prettiness, still sat at the
table, which was littered with dishes. The cheap finery of her hat and
dress showed a pathetic attempt to increase her natural comeliness. At
this minute her face showed amazement and a hint of apprehension.
"What are you coming in here for?" she demanded.
"I want to talk to you for a little while," Weir replied, seating
himself. "You will please listen. I've overheard enough of your talk
to catch its drift; you came here to be married, but now this man
wants to induce you to go to Los Angeles first."
"That isn't any of your business," the girl flashed back, going white
and red by turns.
"I'm making it mine, however. You live up on Terry Creek, by what I
heard; that's not far from my camp. I'm manager at the dam and my
name's Weir."
At this statement the girl shrank back, beginning to bite the hem of
her handkerchief nervously and gazing at him with terrified eyes.
"I'm here to help you, not harm you. You've run away from home to-day
to marry this fellow. Did he promise to marry you if you came to
Bowenville?"
"Yes."
"And now he wants you to go with him to Los Angeles first, promising
to marry you there?"
The girl hesitated, with a wavering look.
"Yes."
"He gives you excuses, of course. But they don't satisfy your mind,
do they? They don't satisfy mine, at any rate. It's the old trick.
Suppose when you reached the coast he didn't marry you after all and
put you off with more promises and after a week or two abandoned
you?"
"Oh, he wouldn't do that!" she cried, with a gulp.
"That's just what he is planning. He didn't meet you here until after
dark, I judge. You'll both go to the train separately--I overheard
that part. Afterwards he could return from the coast and deny that he
had ever had anything to do with you, and it would simply be your word
against his. And which would people hereabouts believe, tell me that,
which would they believe, yours or his, after you had gone wrong?"
The girl sat frozen. Then suddenly she began to cry, softly and with
jerks of her shoulders. Weir reached out and patted her arm.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Mary--Mary Johnson."
"Mary, I'm interfering in your affairs only because I know what men
will do. You must take no chances. If this fellow is really anxious to
marry you, he'll do it here in Bowenville."
After a few sobs she wiped her eyes.
"He said he didn't dare get the license in San Mateo, or his folks
would have stopped our marriage."
"Then you should stay here to-night, go to the next county seat and be
married to-morrow. His parents are bound to learn about it once you're
married. A few days more or less make no difference. And though I
should return to my work, I'll just stay over a day and take you in my
car to-morrow to see that you're married straight and proper. Why go
clear to Los Angeles?"
"He said it would be our honeymoon--and--and I had never been away
from here."
"What's his name?"
She hesitated in uncertainty whether or not she should answer.
"Ed Sorenson," came at last from her lips.
Steele Weir slowly thrust his head forward, fixing her with burning
eyes.
"Son of the big cattleman?" he demanded.
"Yes, sir."
"And you love him?"
"Yes, oh, yes!"
Weir sat back in his seat, lighted a cigarette and stared past her
head at the opposite partition. The evil strain of the father had been
continued in the son and was working here to seduce this simple,
ignorant girl, incited by her physical freshness and the expectation
that she should be easy prey.
"Well, I doubt if he loves you," he said, presently.
"He does, he does!"
"If he really does above everything else in the world, he'll be
willing to marry you openly, no matter what his father may say or do.
That's the test, Mary. If he's in earnest, he'll agree at once to go
with us to the next county seat to-morrow and be married there by a
minister. Isn't that true? Answer me that squarely; isn't it true?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then by that we'll decide. If he agrees, well and good; if he
refuses, that will show him up--show he never had any intention of
marrying you. I'm a stranger to you, but I'm your friend. And you're
not going to Los Angeles unmarried!"
The last words were uttered in a level menacing tone that caused Mary
Johnson to shiver. To her, reared in the humble adobe house on her
father's little ranch on Terry Creek, a man who could manage the great
irrigation project seemed a figure out of her ken, a vast form working
against the sky. His statements were not to be disputed, whatever she
might think.
"Yes, sir," she said, just above a whisper.
"All right. Now we'll wait for him. He was coming back for you, wasn't
he?"
"Yes. I was to stay at the hotel till train time."
"Is this your grip?"
Weir jerked a thumb towards a worn canvas "telescope" fastened with a
single shawl strap, resting in the corner of the booth.
"It's mine. Yes, sir."
"How old is Ed Sorenson," he asked, after a pause.
"About thirty, maybe."
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen next month."
"But sixteen yet this month."
"Yes, sir."
He said nothing more. As the minutes passed, her timorous gaze
continued steadfastly on the stern countenance before her. She dully
expected something terrible to happen when Ed Sorenson appeared, for
she knew Ed would be angry; but she had been powerless to prevent the
intrusion of this terrible stranger.
Fear, in truth, a fear that left her heart cold, was her feeling as
she contemplated Weir. Yet under that, was there not something else? A
sense of safety, of comforting assurance of protection?
"You--you won't hurt Ed if he won't go with us?" she asked, in a low
voice. "If he gets mad and won't marry me here, I mean?"
The man's eyes came round to hers.
"I'll just break him in two, nothing more, Mary," was the calm
answer.