MOLLY KENT
Sweet Molly Kent was as a flower blooming in the grayness of
wind-swept Winnemucca. Johnny wondered how she contrived to be so
clean and pressed. He had been to San Francisco and seen the
fashionable folk of Grant Avenue. Molly could have walked among them
this day to their envy.
On the range she wore fitting clothes, but never—Heaven forbid!—the
side-show “cow-girl” costume which Western girls are popularly
supposed to wear. Brown tweeds of a sensible cut, and boots to match
the best, served her. If she made any concession to the popular idea
it was in the wearing of a small sombrero. Johnny had seen her so
attired times enough to have overcome his awe of her. This new dress
of today, however, was thoroughly disconcerting. Wise Molly divined
his embarrassment and, womanlike, enjoyed it.
The flash of her gleaming white teeth only added to the boy’s
uneasiness. It was so much better to observe girls of her type from
a distance. Not that she was merely pretty or in a true sense
beautiful. Molly’s chin was too masculine for that, her eyes too
wide-set. And yet it was her eyes and that very chin which compelled
attention. There was sense in this girl, a clean body and a clean
mind. Loyalty spoke, too.
Others had noted these things. Men do. Yes, and most women, too.
Springy step, well-rounded ankles, glorious body, the touch of color
in the cheeks glowing against her black hair—they all spoke of
youth, of rare vitality. Here was a human being come thus far from
the Master’s mold unmarred. And this in a rough country. It was no
mean compliment to Jackson Kent.
Poor Johnny! He sensed these things and felt himself ugly, awkward,
hopeless before her. At this moment he would have fought any man so
rash as to claim that she could ever care for his unworthy self.
Taking pity on Johnny, Molly ended his misery by breaking the spell
which held him.
“I thought you were going to strike that old man,” she said half
seriously. “I’d like to know what you are doing down here.”
“Business,” Johnny answered dryly.
“Well, the Diamond-Bar is shipping from Standing Rock, isn’t it?”
Molly’s eyes held his provokingly.
“It is,” Johnny drawled nervously.
“But you’re not. Is that what you are trying to say, Mr. Dice?”
Johnny nodded his head ever so slightly. The smile left Molly’s
eyes.
“Father and you again, Johnny?” she asked anxiously.
“Just me this time, I guess. No matter. I got my pay. But let’s talk
of somethin’ pleasant, if there is any such.”
The girl’s gayety did not return so easily. “I just can’t be
pleasant by request, that way, Johnny,” she said honestly. “I want
to talk to you about this before I start for home.”
“When you leavin’ here?”
“Not before morning.”
This suited Mr. Dice.
“You rode in, didn’t yuh?” he questioned. Molly grinned in spite of
herself. “Folks to home all worried about you,” the boy went on.
“Your daddy tearin’ hair and cursin’. I figured you was down here,
and I looked for you at the hotel.”
“Don’t you tell me what you thought when you found I wasn’t there.
Of course I wouldn’t go to a hotel. The Langwell girls would never
forgive me if I did. Don’t tell me _you_ were worried.”
“That would be kinda hard for me, wouldn’t it?” Johnny drawled.
Molly laughed outright at this. “Next to injured feelings, there’s
nothing like self-pity to make a person miserable, is there, Johnny?
Now you tell me, is father out looking for me?”
“Certainly is. You’d better send a telegram over to Argenta. Hughie
High will be down there tonight for the mail.”
“Of course. I don’t understand what brought father back from the
Rock so quickly. Was it anything to do with you?”
And now Johnny lied. “I’d hate to think so,” he told her.
Shrewd Molly was not more than half convinced of this.
“And the business that brought you here?” she inquired.
Apparently, a violent itching of the Dice scalp followed, but the
girl insisted upon an answer.
“Er—private business,” Johnny said lamely; but to Molly it carried
an air of mystery.
“Well, you meet me at the hotel about two. I wish father had stayed
at the Rock another day.”
Johnny turned back to Dan’s place, but the old man had slipped out.
So, left to himself, the boy promptly began to worry over Molly’s
farewell words. It was plain enough that she had hoped to make her
hurried trip without her father knowing of it. But what reason could
she have for that? The question stayed with Mr. Dice. The girl was
nervous. He could tell that. Coming to Winnemucca had always been
something of a lark. Well, he had failed to find any spirit of
vacation about her today. A blunt question or two would follow this
afternoon!
Johnny had voiced his need of sleep, but now that he had the
opportunity he made no effort to resign himself to it. For one
thing, he wanted to think over that trip to the reservation. Western
men did not go romping over the hills to Indian country for the
thrill of going. It had been one of the dead man’s last acts;
perhaps the one which had led to his death.
The boy could advance a dozen reasons for the man’s going there.
Instinctively he felt it held the answer to the riddle he was trying
to solve. Another talk with Dan was urgent, and then a visit to the
Agency. Johnny could talk the Piute hand language. If necessary he
would stay there for days until he had talked to every brave on the
reservation.
But that was something for this afternoon or tomorrow. For the
immediate present he had a matter of equal importance in mind.
Perhaps nothing would come of it, but it was surely worth the
effort. Johnny was as certain now as he had been when Molly had
interrupted him in his talk with Dan that the stranger had been
coming back to Winnemucca for his mail. It was the boy’s intention
to verify this at once.