FLUFF AND BLACK BILL
Fluff and Black Bill were quarrelling.
Elmer, while Norton and Virginia were on their way from San Juan to Las
Estrellas, had dropped in at the hotel to see his sister. He found
upon her office table the card which she always left for him; this
merely informed him that she was "out on a case at Las Estrellas."
Elmer had come for her purposing to suggest a call upon the Engles.
For not yet had he summoned the hardihood to present himself alone at
Florrie's home. Now, disgruntled, seeing plainly that Virginia would
never get back in time, he went out on the veranda and took solace from
the pipe to which he had grown fairly accustomed. To him came the girl
of whom he was thinking. "Hello, Fluff," he said from the shadows.
"Hello, Black Bill," she greeted him. "Where's Virgie?"
"Gone," he informed her, waving his pipe. "On a case to Las Estrellas.
I'm waiting for her. Did you want to see her?"
Florrie, coming down the veranda to him, giggled.
"No," she told him flippantly. "I'm looking for the Emperor of China.
I never was so lonesome. . . ."
"So'm I," said Elmer. He pushed a chair forward with his foot. "Sit
down and we'll wait for her. And I'll go in and bring out a couple of
bottles of ginger ale or something."
"Will she be back real soon?" asked Florrie pretending to hesitate.
"Sure," he assured her positively.
"All right then." Florrie with a great rustling of skirts sat down.
"But you must be nice to me, Black Bill."
"It's always you who starts it," he muttered at her. "I'd be friends
if you would. What's the good of spatting like two kids, anyway?"
"We're really not kids any longer, are we?" she agreed demurely. "I
feel terribly grown up sometimes, don't you?"
From which point they got along swimmingly for perhaps five minutes
longer than it had ever been possible for them to talk together without
"starting something." Elmer, very emphatic in his own mind concerning
his matured status, yearned for her to understand it as he did. With
such purpose clearly before him . . . and before her, too, for that
matter, since Miss Florrie had a keen little comprehension of her
own . . . he spoke largely of himself and his blossoming plans. He was
a vaquero, to begin with; he had ridden fifty miles yesterday on range
business; he was making money; he was putting part of that money away
in Mr. Engle's bank. There was a little ranch on the rim of Engle's
big holding which belonged to an old half-breed; Elmer meant to acquire
it himself one of these days. And before so very long, too. Mr. Engle
had been approached and was looking into it, might be persuaded to
advance the couple of thousand dollars for the property, taking as
security a mortgage until Elmer could have squared for it. Then Black
Bill would begin stocking his place, a cow now, a horse, another cow,
and so on.
He had launched himself valiantly into his tale. But at a certain
point he began to swallow and catch at his words and smoke fast between
sentences. He had located a dandy spot for a house . . . the jolliest
little spring of cold water you ever saw . . . a knoll with big trees
upon it.
"We'll make up a party with Virginia and Norton some day and ride out
there," he said abruptly. "I . . . I'd like to have you see it, Fluff."
She was tremulously delighted. She sensed the nearest thing to an
out-and-out proposal which had ever sung in her ears. She leaned
forward eagerly, her hands clasped to keep them from trembling. She
was sixteen, he eighteen . . . and she had his assurance of a moment
ago that they were no longer just "kids." And then and there their
so-long-delayed quarrel began. Just at the wrong time, after the
time-honored fashion of quarrels. He was ready to twine the vine about
the veranda posts of the house on the knoll where the spring and the
big trees were, she was ready to plant the fig-tree. Then she had
glimpsed something just too funny for anything in the idea of Elmer
raising pigs . . . for he had gone on to that, sagely anticipating a
high market another season . . . and she laughed at him and all
unintentionally wounded his feelings. In a flash he was Black Bill
again and on his mettle, ready with the quick retort stung from him;
and she, parrying his thrust, was at once Fluff, the mercuric. The
spat was on . . . they would call it a spat to-morrow if to-morrow were
kind to them . . . and Elmer's ranch and house and cow, horse and pigs
were laughed to scorn.
Florrie departed leaving her cruellest laughter to ring in his ears.
This might have been a repetition of any one of a dozen episodes
familiar to them both, but never, perhaps, had Elmer's ears burned so
or Florrie's heart so disturbed her with its beating. For, she thought
regretfully as she hurried out into the street, they had been getting
along so nicely. . . .
She had no business out alone at this time of night and she knew it.
So she hurried on, anxious to get home before her father, who was
returning late from a visit to one of his ranches. Abreast of the Casa
Blanca she slowed up, looking in curiously. Then, as again she was
hastening on, she heard Jim Galloway's deep voice in a quiet "Good
evening, Miss Florence."
"Good evening!" gasped Florrie aloud. And "Oh!" said Florrie under her
breath. For Galloway's figure had separated itself from the shadows at
the side of his open door and had come out into the street, while
Galloway was saying in a matter-of-fact way: "I'll see you home."
She wanted to run and could not. She hung a moment balancing upon a
high heel in indecision. Galloway stepped forward swiftly, coming to
her side. "Oh, dear," the inner Florrie was saying. A glance over her
shoulder showed her Black Bill standing out in front of Struve's hotel.
Well, there were compensations.
She started to hurry on, and had Jim Galloway been less sure of
himself, troubled with the diffidence of youth as was Elmer, he must
have either given over his purpose or else fairly run to keep up with
her. But being Jim Galloway, he laid a gentle but none the less
restraining hand upon her arm.
"Please," he said quietly. "I want to talk with you. May I?"
Florrie's arm burned where he had touched her. She was all in a
flutter, half frightened and the other half flattered. A shade more
leisurely they walked on toward the cottonwoods. Here, in the shadows,
Galloway stopped and Florrie, although beginning to tremble, stopped
with him.
"Men have given me a black name here," he was saying as he faced her.
"They've made me somewhat worse than I am. I feel that I have few
friends, certainly very few of my own class. I like to think of you as
a friend. May I?"
It was distinctly pleasant to have a big man like Galloway, a man whom
for good or for bad the whole State knew, pleading with her. It gave a
new sort of assurance to her theory that she was "grown up"; it added
to her importance in her own eyes.
"Why, yes," said Florrie.
"I am going away," he continued gravely. "For just how long I don't
know. A week, perhaps a month, maybe longer. It is a business matter
of considerable importance, Florence. Nor is it entirely without
danger. It will take me down below the border, and an American in
Mexico right now takes his life entirely into his own hands. You know
that, don't you?"
"Then why do you go?"
Galloway smiled down at her.
"If I held back every time a danger-signal was thrown out," he said
lightly, "I wouldn't travel very far. Oh, I'll come back all right; a
man may go through fire itself and return if he has the incentive which
I have." His tone altered subtly. Florrie started.
"But before I go," went on Galloway, "I am going to tell you something
which I think you know already. You do, don't you, Florence?"
She would not have been Florrie at all, but some very different,
unromantic, and unimaginative creature, had she failed of
comprehension. Jim Galloway was actually making love to her!
"What do you mean, Mr. Galloway?" she managed to stammer.
"I mean that what I am telling you is for your ears alone. I am
placing a confidence in you, the greatest confidence a man can place in
a girl. Or in a woman, Florence. I am trusting that what I say will
remain just between you and me for the present. . . . When I come back
I will be no longer just Jim Galloway of the Casa Blanca, but Galloway
of one of the biggest grants in Mexico, with mile after mile of fertile
lands, with a small army of servants, vaqueros, and retainers, a sort
of ruler of my own State! It sounds like a fairy-tale, Florence, but
it is the sober truth made possible by conditions below the border. My
estates will run down to the blue water of the Gulf; I shall have my
own fleet of ocean-going yachts; there is a port upon my own land.
There will be a home overlooking the sea like a king's palace. Will
you think of all that while I am gone? Will you think of me a little,
too? Will you remember that my little kingdom is crying out for its
queen? . . . No; I am not asking you to answer me now. I am just
asking that you hold this as our secret until I come back. Until I
come back for you! . . . I shall stand here until you reach your
home," he broke off suddenly. "Good night, my dear."
"Good night," said Florence faintly, a little dazed by all that he had
said to her. Then, running through the shadows to her home, she was
thinking of the boy who had wished to propose to her and of the man who
had done so; of Elmer's little home upon the knoll surrounded by a cow,
a horse, and some pigs . . . and of a big house like a palace looking
out to sea across the swaying masts of white-sailed, sea-going yachts!