to answer. Miss Mattie glanced around and finding Red's eye on
her, replied, "No sir--Mr. Demilt's house is about a mile further
up the road."
"Dear me!" said the young man ruefully. He was a spic-and-span,
intelligent looking man, with less of the dandy about him than the
air of a man who had never worn anything but clothes of the proper
trim, and become quite used to it. Nevertheless the sweat stood
out in drops on his forehead, for Fairfield's front "street"
savoured of a less moral region than it really was, on a broiling
summer day.
The young man sighed frankly and wiped his head. "Well, that's too
bad," he said. "I'm a stranger here--would you kindly tell me
where I could get some dinner?"
"What's the matter with that?" inquired Red, pointing to the roast,
which still preserved an air of fallen greatness. He had liked the
look of the other instantly.
The stranger looked first at Red and then at the roast. "The only
thing I can see the matter with that," he answered, "is that it is
a slice too thick."
"Keno!" cried Red, "you get it. Mattie, another plate and weapons
to fit. Sit down, sir, and rest your fevered feet. It you don't
like walking any better than I do, you've probably strewn fragments
of one of the commandments all the way from where the stage dropped
you to this apple tree."
"It seems to me that I did make some remarks that I never learned
at my mother's knee," returned the other laughing. "And I'm
exceedingly obliged for the invitation, as there doesn't seem to be
a hotel here, and I am but a degree south of starvation."
"Red or black?" asked the host, with a quick glance at his guest.
The other caught the allusion. "I haven't followed the deal," he
replied, "but I'll chance it on the red."
Somehow he felt instantly at home and at ease; it was a quality
that Red Saunders dispersed wherever he went.
"There you are, sir," said Red, forwarding a plate full of juicy
meat. "The ladies will supply the decorations."
"Do you like rice as a vegetable, sir?" inquired Miss Mattie.
"No--he doesn't," interrupted Red. "He likes it as an
animal--never saw anyone who looked less like a vegetable than our
friend," The young man's laugh rang out above the others.
Poor Miss Mattie was confused. "It's too bad of you, Will, to put
such a meaning on my words," she said.
"The strange part of it is," spoke the young man, seeing an
opportunity for a joke, and to deal courteously with his
entertainers at the same time. "The peculiar fact is, that my name
is Lettis."
"Lettuce?" cried Red. "Mattie, I apologise--he is a vegetable."
At which they all laughed again.
"And now," said Red, "I'm Red Saunders, late of the Chantay Seeche
Ranch, Territory of Dakota--State of North Dakota, I mean, can't
get used to the State business; there's a Bill and a Dick on this
side of me and two Johns and a Sammy on the other. Foot of the
table is Miss Mattie Saunders, next to her--just as they run--Miss
Pauline Doolittle and Miss Mary Ann Demilt, who may be kin to the
gentleman you're seeking."
"Mr. Thomas F. Demilt?" asked the stranger.
"He's my sister," responded Miss Mary Ann. Whereat the youths
buried their faces in the plates, as Mr. Thomas F., in spite of
many excellent qualities, bore a pathetic resemblance to the title.
"I mean," continued the lady hurriedly, "that I'm his brother."
"By Jimmy, ma'am!" exclaimed Red. "But yours is a strange family!"
"What Miss Demilt wishes to say," cut in Miss Doolittle with some
asperity, "is that Mr. Thomas Faulkenstone Demilt is her brother."
She did not add, as extreme candour would have urged, "And I have
some hope--remote, alas! but there--of becoming sister to Miss
Demilt myself."
"Thank you!" said Lettis. "Shall I be able to see him this
afternoon?"
"Oh, mercy, yes!" said Miss Mary Ann. "Tom is home all day."
"I can thank the kind fates for that," said Lettis. "I had begun
to think he was a myth," and he fell in upon the tender meat with
the vigorous appetite of youth and a good digestion.
Nathaniel Lettis was by no means a fool, and he had experience in
business, but the mainspring of the young fellow was frankness, and
in the course of the dinner he told his errand. Mr. Demilt had
written to his firm explaining the advantages of starting a
straw-board factory in Fairfield. It was too small a thing for the
firm to be interested in, but Lettis had a small capital which he
wished to invest in an enterprise of his own handling, and it had
struck him that there might be a chance for independence; therefore
he had come to find out the lay of the land.
* * * * *
Red Saunders' first-glance liking of the stranger deepened as he
told of his business. The cowman did not blame people who took
devious ways and dealt in ambiguities, for his experience in the
world, which was pretty fairly complete, had told him that craft
was a necessity for weak natures; nevertheless he cared not for
those who used it.
In his part of the West, a man would no more think of giving a
false impression of his financial standing to alter his position in
one's regard, than he would wear corsets. Money was of small
consequence; its sequelae of less. Men spoke openly of how much
they made; how they liked the job; how their claims were paying;
such matters were neutral ground of chance conversation, as the
weather is in the East. The rapid and unpredictable changes of
fortune gave a tendency to make light of one's present condition.
A man would say "I'm busted" without any more feeling than he would
say "I have a cold." Now, in Fairfield, that is not likely
lonesome in that respect, one of the principal objects in life was
to conceal the poverty which would persist in sticking its gaunt
elbows through the cloth of words spread over it. Red asked
straight-forward questions--shrewd ones, too--seeing that the other
was one of his own kind and would not resent it.
Lettis wanted nothing better than a chance to expand on the
subject. It was close to his heart. He had been a subordinate
about as long as a proud and masterful young fellow ought to be.
Now he was quivering to try his own strength, and seeing, for his
part, that his host was inspired with a genuine interest and not
curiosity, he gave him all the information in his power.
"But a plant like that is going to cost some money, ain't it?"
asked Red.
"Too much for me, I'm afraid," replied Lettis. "I have five
thousand to put in, and I suppose I could borrow the rest, but
that's saddling the business with too heavy charges right in the
beginning. Still, it may not be as bad as I fancy."
Red drummed on the table, thinking. "I wouldn't mind getting into
a business of some kind, as long as it was making things," he said.
"I don't hanker to keep store much--suppose I go along with you,
when you look up how much straw is raised and the rest of it?"
"Would you?" cried the young fellow, eagerly. "By George, sir, I
wish you could see your way clear to take hold of it. Could you
stand ten thousand, for instance? Excuse the question, but I'm so
anxious over this----"
"Lord! What's the harm of asking facts?" said Red. Then with a
gleam of genial pride, "Ten thousand wouldn't break me by a durn
sight".
Lettis' boyish face fairly glowed. "It was my good angel made me
stop in front of your fence," he said. "I saw you all eating in
here and you looked so jolly, that I thought I'd stop, on the
chance you might be the man I was looking for; now I'll go right on
and see Mr. Demilt and find out what he wants to do in the matter."
"Wait for the waggon and you can ride," said Red. "Boy's gone home
to see his dad about working for me this afternoon; in the
meantime, it you're not too proud to take hold and help us with
this dod-ratted fence, I'll be obliged to you."
"Bring on your fence! I'm ready," said Lettis.
"Come on, boys!" said Red, and the party rose from the table.
Later the waggon came up.
"Well, good day, Lettis," said Red. "If you can't get quarters
anywhere else, come on and help me hold the barn down."
"Do you sleep in the barn? Then I'll come back sure. Tell you how
it is, Mr. Saunders. I've been stuck up in a three-by-nine office
for four years--nose held to 'A to M, Western branch,' and if I'm
not sick of it there's no such thing as sickness; to get out and
breathe the fresh air, to see the country, to be my own master!
Well, sir, it just makes me tremble to think of it. I hope you
find the straw-board what you want to take up."
"I shouldn't wonder if it would be," answered Red. "We'll make a
corking team to do business, Lettis, I can see that--so cautious
and full of tricks, and all that."
The young man laughed and then sobered down. "Of course, I know
the whole thing would look insane to most people," he said
sturdily, "but I've been in business long enough to see sharp
gentlemen come to grief in spite of their funny work. I don't
believe a man'll come to any more harm by believing people mean
well by him than he would by working on the other tack."
"Good boy!" said Red, slapping him on the back. "You stick to that
and you'll get a satisfaction out of it that money couldn't buy
you. Another thing, you'd never get a cent out of me in this world
it you were one of these smooth young men. My eye teeth are cut,
son, for all I may seem easy. The man that does me a trick has a
chance for bad luck, and you can bet on that."
"Lord! I believe you!" replied Lettis, taking in the dimensions of
his new friend. "Well, good-bye for the present, Mr.
Saunders--thank you for the dinner and still more for the heart you
have put into me."
At six o'clock the fence was not quite finished.
"If you'll stay with me until the thing's done, I'll stand another
dollar all around," said Red. "I don't want it to stare me in the
face to-morrow."
The eldest spoke up. "We'll stay with you, Mr. Saunders, but we
don't want any money for it, do we, fellers?"
"No," they replied in chorus, well meaning what they said.
"Why, you're perfectly welcome to the cash!" said Red.
"And you're welcome to the work," retorted the boy. "We're paid
plenty as it is."
"If that's the way you look at it, I'm much obliged to you," said
Red, who would not have discouraged such a feeling for anything.
He said to himself, "This don't seem much like the kind of people
I've heard inhabited these parts. Those boys are all right.
Reckon it you use people decent they'll play up to your lead, no
matter what country it is."
At seven thirty the fence was done, gorgeous in a coat of fresh red
paint, and the hands departed, each with a slice of Miss Mattie's
chocolate cake, a thing to make the heathen gods feel contemptuous
of ambrosia.
They went straight to the blacksmith's shop, where they were
anxiously expected.
"Good Lord!" he said a little later, "it you fellers will talk one
at a time, p'r'aps I can make out what's happened. Now, Sammy,
sp'ose you do the speaking?"
Whereupon Sammy faithfully chronicled the events of the day. The
boys had behaved themselves as if there was nothing out of the
common happening while they were with Red, being held up by a sense
of pride, but naturally, the splendid physique of the cowman, his
picturesque attire, his abandoned way of scattering money around
and the air of a frolic he had managed to impart to a day's hard
work, all had effect on imagination, and the boys were very much
excited.
"I'd like to know how many Injuns that feller's killed!" piped up
the youngest. "My! he could grab hold of a man and wring his neck
like a chicken."
"Aw, tst!" remonstrated the blacksmith. But the elders stood by
the younker this time.
"Yes, he could, Mr. Farrel!" said they. "You ought to seen him
when he rolled up his sleeves! He's got an arm on him like the
hind leg of a horse, and he uses an ax like a tack-hammer. He got
mad once when he pounded his thumb, and busted the post square in
two with one crack."
"Well, he looks like a husky man," admitted the blacksmith. "But
why didn't you boys take the extry dollar when he made the offer?
He 'pears to know what he was about and looks kind of foolish to
say 'no' to it."
There was a moment's silence. "We wanted to show him we were just
as good as the folks he knew," explained the eldest, somewhat
shame-facedly.
The blacksmith straightened himself. "Quite right, too," said
he. "We _air_, when you come to that." A little pride is a
wonderful tonic. Each unit of that gathering felt himself the
better for the display of it.
* * * * *
In the meantime, Red was repairing the ravages of the day opposite
Miss Mattie at a supper table which was bountifully spread. Miss
Mattie put two and two together, and found they meant a larger sum
of eatables than she had hitherto felt sufficient, and with a
little pang at the thought of the inadequacy of her first offering
to her cousin, provided such fatness as the land of Fairfield
boasted.
They discussed the events of the day with satisfaction.
"My!" said Miss Mattie. "You do things wholesale while you are
about it, Will, don't you?"
Red smiled in pleased acknowledgment. "I'm no peanut stand, old
lady," said he. "I like to see things move."
Then Miss Mattie broached the question she had been hovering around
ever since her guests had taken their leave.
"Do you think you'll really go into business with that young man
who was here to dinner?" she asked.
"Why, I think it's kinder likely," said Red.
"But you don't know anything about him, Will," she continued,
putting the weak side of her desire forward, in order to rest more
securely if that stood the test.
"No, I don't," agreed Red. "But here's the way I feel about that:
I want to be doing something according to my size; besides that, it
would be a good thing for this place if some kind of a live doings
was to start here. All right, that's my side of it. Now, as far
as not knowing that young feller's concerned, I might think I knew
him from cyclone-cellar to roof-tree, and he might do me to a
crowded house. My idea is that life's a good deal like faro--you
know how that is."
"I remember about his not letting the people go, but I'm afraid I
don't know my Bible as well as I ought to, Will," apologised Miss
Mattie, rather astonished at his allusion.
"Let the people go? Bible?" cried Red, laying down his knife and
fork, still more astonished at her allusion. "Will you kindly tell
me what that has to do with faro-bank? Girl, one of us is full of
ghost songs, and far, far off the reservation. What in the name of
Brigham Young's off-ox are you talking about?"
"Why, you spoke of Pharaoh, Will, and I can remember about his
holding the children of Israel captive, and the plagues, but I
really don't see just how it applies."
"Oh!" said Red, as a great light broke upon him. "Oh, I see what
you're thinking about. The old boy who corralled the Jews, and
made 'em work for the first and last time in their history, and
they filled him full of fleas, and darkness, and all kinds of
unpleasant experiences to break even? Well, I was not talking
about him at all. My faro is a game played with a lay-out and a
pack of cards and a little tin box that you ought to look at
carefully before you put any money on the board, to see that it
ain't arranged for dealing seconds; and there's a lookout and a
case keeper and--well, I don't believe I could tell you just how it
works, but some day I'll make a layout and we'll have some fun.
It's a bully game, but I say, it's a great deal like life--the
splits go to the dealer; that is to say, that if the king comes out
to win and lose at the same time, you lose anyhow, see?"
"No," said Miss Mattie, truthfully.
Red thrust his fingers through his hair and sighed. "I'm afraid I
know too much about it to explain it clearly," he replied. "But
what I mean is this: some people try to play system at faro, and
they last about as quick as those that don't. I always put the
limit on the card that's handiest, and the game don't owe me a
cent; as a matter of fact, some of the tin-horns used to wear a
pained expression when they saw me coming across the room. I've
split 'cm from stem to keelson more than once, and never used a
copper in my life--played 'em wide open, all the time. Now," and
he brought his fist down on the table, "I'm going to play that
young man wide open, and I'll bet you I don't lose by him neither.
He looks as honest as a mastiff pup, for all he dresses kind of
nice. I might just as well try him on the fly, as to go
lunk-heading around and get stuck anyhow, with the unsatisfactory
addition of feeling that I was a fool, as well as confiding."
Most of the argument had been ancient Aryan to Miss Mattie, but the
ring of the voice and the little she understood made the tenor
plain. A sudden moisture gathered in her eyes as she said, "You're
too good and honest and generous a man to distrust anybody: that's
what I think, Will."
"Mattie, I wish you wouldn't talk like that," said he, in an
injured voice. "It ain't hardly respectable."
After which there was a silence for a short time. Then said Miss
Mattie, "Do you think you could content yourself here, Will, after
all the things you've seen?"
Red brightened at the change of topic. "I'll tell you how that is:
if I hadn't any capital, and had to work here as a poor man, I
don't believe I'd take the trouble to try and live--I'd smother;
but having that pleasant little crop of long greens securely
planted in the bank where the wild time doesn't grow, and thusly
being able to cavort around as it sweetly pleases me, why, I like
the country. It's sport to take hold of a place like this, that's
only held together by its suspenders, and try to make a real live
man's town out of it."
Miss Mattie drew a deep breath of relief. "You came like the hero
in a fairy story, Will, and I was afraid you'd go away like one,"
she said.
He reached across the table and patted her hand. "You'd have had
to gone, too," said he. "The family'll stick together."
She thanked him in a soft little voice. "Dear me!" she murmured.
"It does seem that you've been here a year, Will."
"Never was told that I was such slow company before."
"You know perfectly well that that isn't what I mean."
"Well, you'll have to put up with me for a while, whatever I am;
insomuch as I'm to be a manufacturer and the Lord knows what. Then
some day I'm going to have an awful hankering for the land where
the breeze blows, and then we'll take a shute for open prairie.
It's cruelty to animals for me to straddle a horse now, yet there's
where I'm at home, and I'm going to buy me a cayuse of some
kind--say, I ought to get at that; if I'm going around with Lettis
I want to ride a horse--know anybody that's got a real live horse
for sale, Mattie? No? Well, I'll stop in and see the lady that
deals the mail--I'll bet you what that woman doesn't know about
what's going on in this camp will never get into history--be back
right away."
Said he to the post-mistress, "My name's Saunders, ma'am--cousin to
Miss Mattie. I just stopped in to find out if you knew anyone that
had a riding horse for sale; horse with four good legs that'll
carry me all day, and about the rest I don't care a frolicsome
cuss."
The post-mistress replied at such length, and with such velocity
that Red was amazed. He gathered from her remarks that a certain
Mr. Upton had an animal, purchased of a chance horse dealer, which
it was altogether likely he would dispose of, as the first time he
had tried the brute it went up into the air all sorts of ways, and
caused the owner to perform such tricks before high Heaven as made
the angels weep.
"Where does this man live?" asked Red, with a kindling eye.
"He lives about three miles out on the Peterville road, but he's in
town to-night visitin' Miss Alders--Johnny!" to a small boy who had
been following the conversation, his wide-open eyes bent on Red,
and his mouth and wiggling bare toes expressing their delight in
vigorous contortions, "Johnny, you run tell Mr. Upton there's a
gentleman in here wants to see him about buying a horse."
"Don't disturb him if he's visiting," remonstrated Red.
"He won't call that disturbing him," replied the post-mistress,
with a shrill laugh. "He'll be here in no time."
She was a true prophet. It seemed as if the boy had barely left
the store when he returned with a stoop-shouldered, solemn-faced
man, who had a brush-heap of chin-whisker decorating the lower part
of his face. After greetings and the explanation of the errand,
Mr. Upton stroked his chin-whisker regretfully. "Young man," said
he, "I'm in a pecooliar and onpleasant position; there's mighty
feyew things I wouldn't do in a hawse trade, but I draw the line on
murder. That there hawse'll kill you, just's sure as you're fool
enough to put yerself on his back. I'll sell you a real hawse
mighty reasonable--"
"I'll risk him," cut in Red. "Could you lead him down here in the
morning?"
"Yes, indeedy--he's a perfect lady of a horse to lead---you can
pick up airy foot--climb all over him in fac', s'long's you don't
try to ride him or hitch him up. If you do that--well, young man,
you'll get a pretty fair idee of what is meant by one of the demons
of hell."
"What kind of saddle have you got?"
"One of them outlandish Western affairs that the scamp threw in
with the animal--you see, I thought I'd take up horse-back riding
for my health; I was in bed three weeks after my fust try."
"I'll go you seventy-five dollars for the outfit, just as you got
it--chaps, taps, and latigo straps, if you'll have it in front of
my house at nine o'clock to-morrow."
"All right, young man--all right sir--now don't blame me if you air
took home shoes fust."
"Nary," said Red. "Come and see the fun."
"I shorely will," replied the old gentleman.
IV
At nine the next morning there was a crowd in front of the house.
"What have you been doing now, Will?" asked Miss Mattie with
prescience.
"Only buying a horse, Mattie," returned Red soberly. "Seems to be
quite an event here."
"Is that all?"
"That's all, so help me Bob!" Red had a suspicion that there would
be objections if she knew what kind of a horse it was.
Lettis, who had roomed with Red overnight, was in the secret.
The horse arrived, leading very quietly, as Mr. Upton had said. It
was a buckskin, fat and hearty from long resting. Nothing could be
more docile than the pensive lower lip, and the meek curve of the
neck; nothing could be more contradictory than the light of its
eye; a brooding, baleful fire, quietly biding its time.
"Scatter, friends!" cried Red, as he put his foot in the stirrup.
"Don't be too proud to take to timber!"
He swung over as lightly as a trapeze performer, deftly catching
his other stirrup. The horse groaned and shivered.
"Don't let him get his head down! Gol-ding it! Don't you!"
screamed Mr. Upton in wild excitement.
Red threw the bridle over the horn of the saddle. "Go it, you
devil!" cried he. And they went. Six feet straight in the air,
first pass. The crowd scattered, as requested. They hurried at
that. Red gave the brute the benefit of his two hundred and a half
as they touched earth, and his opponent grunted when he felt the
jar of it. They rocketted and ricochetted; they were here, they
were there, they were everywhere, the buckskin squealing like a
pig, and fighting with every ounce of the strength that lay in his
steel strung legs; the dust rose in clouds; Red's hat flew in no
time; he was yelling like a maniac, and the crowd was yelling like
more maniacs. Now and then a glimpse of the rider's face could be
caught, transported with joy of the struggle; then the dust would
roll up and hide everything. No one was more pleased at the
spectacle than the blacksmith. He was capering in the middle of
the road, waving a hand-hammer and shouting "Hold him _down_! Hold
him DOWN! Why do you let him jump up like that? If _I_ was on
that horse I'd show you! Aw, there it is again--Stop him! _Stop_
him!"