Bidwell straightened. "They're my bundles, I reckon. Can't a man do as
he likes with his own?"
"Not whin he's owin' fer board. Put thim boondles down!"
The culprit sighed and sat down on the bundles. Even young Johnson lost
his desire to laugh, for Bidwell looked pathetically old and discouraged
at the moment, as he mildly asked:
"You wouldn't send a man out in the night without his blankets, would
you?"
"I'd send a sneak to purgatory--if I c'u'd. Ye thought ye'd ooze out,
did ye? Nice speciment you are!"
Bidwell was roused. "If I had planned to sneak I wouldn't 'a' come into
the room with you a-standin' in the middle of the floor," he replied,
with some firmness. "You ordered me out, didn't you? Well, I'm goin'. I
can't pay you--you knew that when you told me to go--and I owe you a
good deal--I admit that--but I'm going to pay it. But I must have a
little time."
The other men, with a grateful sense of delicacy, got up and went out,
leaving Bidwell free space to justify himself in the eyes of the angry
woman.
As the door slammed behind the last man the widow walked over and gave
Bidwell a cuff. "Get _off_ thim boondles. Gaw set on a chair like a man,
an' not squat there like a baboon." She pitched his bundles through an
open door into a small bedroom. "Ye know where yer bed is, I hope! I do'
know phwat Dan Delaney w'u'd say to me, housin' and feedin' the likes o'
you, but I'll do it wan more summer--and then ye gaw flyin'. Ye hear
that now!"
And she threw the door back on its hinges so sharply that a knob was
broken.
Bidwell went in, closed the door gently, and took to his bed, dazed with
this sudden change in the climate. "She's come round before--and
surprised me," he thought, "but never so durn sudden as this. I hope she
ain't sick or anything."
Next morning at breakfast Maggie was all smiles. The storm of the
evening before had given place to brilliant sunshine. She ignored all
winks and nudgings among her boarders, and did not scruple to point out
to Bidwell the choicest biscuit on the plate, and to hand him the
fattest slice of bacon, all of which he accepted without elation.
"Old Sherm must be one o' these hypnotical chaps," said Johnson as they
were lighting their pipes in the sitting-room. "He's converted the widow
into another helping. He's goin' to get his flour and bacon all right!"
"You bet he is, and anything else he wants. Beats me what she finds in
that old side-winder, anyhow."
"Oh, Sherm isn't so worse if he had a decent outfit."
Bidwell was deeply touched by Maggie's clemency, and would have put his
feelings into the best terms he was familiar with, but the widow stopped
him.
"The best way to thank me is to hustle out and trail up that flo-at. If
it's there, find it. If it's not there, give o'er the search, for ye are
a gray man, Sherm Bidwell, and I'm not the woman I was eight years ago."
In the exaltation of the moment Bidwell rose, and his shoulders were
squared as he said: "I'm a-goin', Maggie. If I find it I'll come back
and marry you. If I don't--I'll lay my useless old bones in the hills."
"Ah--go 'long! Don't be a crazy fool!" she said, but her face flushed
with pleasure at the sincerity of his tone. "Ye've made such promises
ivery time before."
"I know I have, but I mean it now."
"Aho! so that's the way of it--ye didn't mean it before? Is that phwat
ye're sayin'?"
His proud pose collapsed. "You know what I mean--only you're such a
tormentin' little devil."
"Thank ye for the compliment, Mr. Bidwell."
Bidwell turned. "I'm going after old Nebuchadnezzar," he said, firmly.
"I can't waste time on a chicken-headed woman--"
"Out wid ye before I break the measly head of ye!" she retorted.
An hour later, with his mule packed with food and blankets and tools, he
moved off up the trail. The other men stood to watch him go, consumed
with curiosity, yet withholding all question.
The widow did not so much as look from the door as her grub-staker
disappeared.