_Prune Pie and Coon-can._
Of a truth, Charming Billy Boyle, living his life in the wide land
that is too big and too far removed from the man-made world for any
but the strong of heart, knew little indeed of women--her kind of
women. When he returned with two chickens and found that the floor had
been swept so thoroughly as to look strange to him, and that all his
scattered belongings were laid in a neat pile upon the foot of the
bunk which was unfamiliar under straightened blankets and pitifully
plumped pillows, he was filled with astonishment. Miss Bridger smiled
a little and went on washing the dishes.
"It's beginning to storm, isn't it?" she remarked. "But we'll eat
chicken stew before we--before I start home. If you have a horse that
I can borrow till morning, father will bring it back."
Billy scattered a handful of feathers on the floor and gained a little
time by stooping to pick them up one by one. "I've been wondering
about that," he said reluctantly. "It's just my luck not to have a
gentle hoss in camp. I've got two, but they ain't safe for women. The
Pilgrim's got one hoss that might uh done if it was here, which it
ain't."
She looked disturbed, though she tried to hide it. "I can ride pretty
well," she ventured.
Without glancing at her, Charming Billy shook his head. "You're all
right here"--he stopped to pick up more feathers--"and it wouldn't be
safe for yuh to try it. One hoss is mean about mounting; yuh couldn't
get within a rod of him. The other one is a holy terror to pitch when
anything strange gets near him. I wouldn't let yuh try it." Charming
Billy was sorry--that showed in his voice--but he was also firm.
Miss Bridger thoughtfully wiped a tin spoon. Billy gave her a furtive
look and dropped his head at the way the brightness had gone out of
her face. "They'll be worried, at home," she said quietly.
"A little worry beats a funeral," Billy retorted sententiously,
instinctively mastering the situation because she was a woman and he
must take care of her. "I reckon I could--" He stopped abruptly and
plucked savagely at a stubborn wing feather.
"Of course! You could ride over and bring back a horse!" She caught
eagerly at his half-spoken offer. "It's a lot of bother for you, but
I--I'll be very much obliged." Her face was bright again.
"You'd be alone here--"
"I'm not the least bit afraid to stay alone. I wouldn't mind that at
all."
Billy hesitated, met a look in her eyes that he did not like to see
there, and yielded. Obviously, from her viewpoint that was the only
thing to do. A cowpuncher who has ridden the range since he was
sixteen should not shirk a night ride in a blizzard, or fear losing
the trail. It was not storming so hard a man might not ride ten
miles--that is, a man like Charming Billy Boyle.
After that he was in great haste to be gone, and would scarcely wait
until Miss Bridger, proudly occupying the position of cook, told him
that the chicken stew was ready. Indeed, he would have gone without
eating it if she had not protested in a way that made Billy foolishly
glad to submit; as it was, he saddled his horse while he waited, and
reached for his sheepskin-lined, "sour-dough" coat before the last
mouthful was fairly swallowed. At the last minute he unbuckled his gun
belt and held it out to her.
"I'll leave you this," he remarked, with an awkward attempt to appear
careless. "You'll feel safer if you have a gun, and--and if you're
scared at anything, shoot it." He finished with another smile that
lighted wonderfully his face and his eyes.
She shook her head. "I've often stayed alone. There's nothing in the
world to be afraid of--and anyway, I'll have the dog. Thank you, all
the same."
Charming Billy looked at her, opened his mouth and closed it without
speaking. He laid the gun down on the table and turned to go. "If
anything scares yuh," he repeated stubbornly, "shoot it. Yuh don't
want to count too much on that dawg."
He discovered then that Flora Bridger was an exceedingly willful young
woman. She picked up the gun, overtook him, and fairly forced it into
his hands. "Don't be silly; I don't want it. I'm not such a coward as
all that. You must have a very poor opinion of women. I--I'm deadly
afraid of a gun!"
Billy was not particularly impressed by the last statement, but he
felt himself at the end of his resources and buckled the belt around
him without more argument. After all, he told himself, it was not
likely that she would have cause for alarm in the few hours that
he would be gone, and those hours he meant to trim down as much as
possible.
Out of the coulée where the high wall broke the force of the storm, he
faced the snow and wind and pushed on doggedly. It was bitter riding,
that night, but he had seen worse and the discomfort of it troubled
him little; it was not the first time he had bent head to snow and
driving wind and had kept on so for hours. What harassed him most were
the icy hills where the chinook had melted the snow, and the north
wind, sweeping over, had frozen it all solid again. He could not ride
as fast as he had counted upon riding, and he realized that it would
be long hours before he could get back to the cabin with a horse from
Bridger's.
Billy could not tell when first came the impulse to turn back. It
might have been while he was working his way cautiously up a slippery
coulée side, or it might have come suddenly just when he stopped; for
stop he did (just when he should logically have ridden faster because
the way was smoother) and turned his horse's head downhill.
"If she'd kept the gun--" he muttered, apologizing to himself for
the impulse, and flayed his horse with his _romal_ because he did not
quite understand himself and so was ill at ease. Afterward, when he
was loping steadily down the coulée bottom with his fresh-made tracks
pointing the way before him, he broke out irrelevantly and viciously:
"A real, old range rider yuh can bank on, one way or the other--but
damn a pilgrim!"
The wind and the snow troubled him not so much now that his face was
not turned to meet them, but it seemed to him that the way was rougher
and that the icy spots were more dangerous to the bones of himself and
his horse than when he had come that way before. He did not know why
he need rage at the pace he must at times keep, and it did strike him
as being a foolish thing to do--this turning back when he was almost
halfway to his destination; but for every time he thought that, he
urged his horse more.
The light from the cabin window, twinkling through the storm, cheered
him a little, which was quite as unreasonable as his uneasiness. It
did not, however, cause him to linger at turning his horse into the
stable and shutting the door upon him. When he passed the cabin window
he glanced anxiously in and saw dimly through the half-frosted
glass that Miss Bridger was sitting against the wall by the table,
tight-lipped and watchful. He hurried to the door and pushed it open.
"Why, hello," greeted the Pilgrim uncertainly, The Pilgrim was
standing in the centre of the room, and he did not look particularly
pleased. Charming Billy, every nerve on edge, took in the situation at
a glance, kicked the Pilgrim's dog and shook the snow from his hat.
"I lost the trail," he lied briefly and went over to the stove. He did
not look at Miss Bridger directly, but he heard the deep breath which
she took.
"Well, so did I," the Pilgrim began eagerly, with just the least
slurring of his syllables. "I'd have been here before dark, only one
of the horses slipped and lamed himself. It was much as ever I got
home at all. He come in on three legs, and toward the last them three
like to went back on him."
"Which hoss?" asked Billy, though he felt pessimistically that he knew
without being told. The Pilgrim's answer confirmed his pessimism. Of
course, it was the only gentle horse they had.
"Say, Billy, I forgot your tobacco," drawled the Pilgrim, after a very
short silence which Billy used for much rapid thinking.
Ordinarily, Billy would have considered the over sight as something of
a catastrophe, but he passed it up as an unpleasant detail and turned
to the girl. "It's storming something fierce," he told her in an
exceedingly matter-of-fact way, "but I think it'll let up by daylight
so we can tackle it. Right now it's out of the question; so we'll have
another supper--a regular blowout this time, with coffee and biscuits
and all those luxuries. How are yuh on making biscuits?"
So he got her out of the corner, where she had looked too much at bay
to please him, and in making the biscuits she lost the watchful look
from her eyes. But she was not the Flora Bridger who had laughed at
their makeshifts and helped cook the chicken, and Charming Billy,
raving inwardly at the change, in his heart damned fervently the
Pilgrim.
In the hours that followed, Billy showed the stuff he was made of. He
insisted upon cooking the things that would take the longest time to
prepare; boasted volubly of the prune pies he could make, and then
set about demonstrating his skill and did not hurry the prunes in the
stewing. He fished out a package of dried lima beans and cooked some
of them, changing the water three times and always adding cold water.
For all that, supper was eventually ready and eaten and the dishes
washed--with Miss Bridger wiping them and with the Pilgrim eying them
both in a way that set on edge the teeth of Charming Billy.
When there was absolutely nothing more to keep them busy, Billy got
the cards and asked Miss Bridger if she could play coon-can--which was
the only game he knew that was rigidly "two-handed." She did not
know the game and he insisted upon teaching her, though the Pilgrim
glowered and hinted strongly at seven-up or something else which they
could all play.
"I don't care for seven-up," Miss Bridger quelled, speaking to him
for the first time since Billy returned. "I want to learn this game
that--er--Billy knows." There was a slight hesitation on the name,
which was the only one she knew to call him by.
The Pilgrim grunted and retired to the stove, rattled the lids
ill-naturedly and smoked a vile cigar which he had brought from town.
After that he sat and glowered at the two.
Billy did the best he could to make the time pass quickly. He had
managed to seat Miss Bridger so that her back was toward the stove and
the Pilgrim, and he did it so unobtrusively that neither guessed his
reason. He taught her coon-can, two-handed whist and Chinese solitaire
before a gray lightening outside proclaimed that the night was over.
Miss Bridger, heavy-eyed and languid, turned her face to the window;
Billy swept the cards together and stacked them with an air of
finality.
"I guess we can hit the trail now without losing ourselves," he
remarked briskly. "Pilgrim, come on out and help me saddle up; we'll
see if that old skate of yours is able to travel."
The Pilgrim got up sullenly and went out, and Billy followed him
silently. His own horse had stood with the saddle on all night, and
the Pilgrim snorted when he saw it. But Billy only waited till the
Pilgrim had put his saddle on the gentlest mount they had, then took
the reins from him and led both horses to the door.
"All right," he called to the girl; helped her into the saddle and
started off, with not a word of farewell from Miss Bridger to the
Pilgrim.
The storm had passed and the air was still and biting cold. The
eastern sky was stained red and purple with the rising sun, and
beneath the feet of their horses the snow creaked frostily. So they
rode down the coulée and then up a long slope to the top, struck the
trail and headed straight north with a low line of hills for their
goal. And in the hour and a half of riding, neither spoke a dozen
words.
At the door of her own home Billy left her, and gathered up the reins
of the Pilgrim's horse. "Well, good-by. Oh, that's all right--it
wasn't any trouble at all," he said huskily when she tried to thank
him, and galloped away.