“Nossir! Not now nor never! Why, listen, Len--aw, that’s onreasonable.
No danged female could run a cow ranch. I tell yuh, I won’t stand for
it. Me and Sailor has talked it over among us, and he feels the same as
I do. Of course, his opinion ain’t worth nothin’, as far as that is
concerned, but we’re ready to step right out when she comes.”
Whispering Taylor waved his arms a few times, kicked a stick of wood
under the stove, and glared at Len Ayres, who was tilted back in a chair
against the kitchen wall, hands locked around his knees.
“Step out where, Whisperin’?” he asked calmly.
“That’s the whole trouble, Len. Me and Sailor ain’t as young as we used
to was. I might git a job cookin’ some’ers, but old Sailor’s a total
loss on the job question. Jist a couple of old derelicts. Len, it’s
awful to git old, don’tcha know it?”
“Yeah, that’s right, Whisperin’. If I was in yore place, I’d stay
here--if she’ll keep yuh--and I think she will. Looks like a sensible
girl. Of course, she’d be advised by Baggs, but he’s a friend of mine,
and I’ll ask him to tell her to keep you and Sailor.”
“You ain’t tryin’ to be comical, are yuh, Len?” Whisperin’ asked.
“What about?”
“About you and Amos Baggs bein’ friends.”
“No-o. He’ll do what I ask, Whisperin’.”
“Uh-huh?” dubiously. He walked to the kitchen door.
“That’s enough wood, Sailor!” he yelled.
“Fetch in both sticks, will yuh?”
Sailor came staggering in with an armful of wood, which he flung down
with a great clatter.
“Think yo’re funny, don’tcha?” he asked Whisperin’. “I’ll betcha I can
cut more wood in a day than you can. Betcha forty dollars, I can.”
“What’ll yuh use for money, you spittin’ old badger?”
“Oh, I’ve got the money.”
“You have not. Sailor, me and Len has decided that the best thing for me
and you to do is to stay right here.”
“You and Len has, eh? I ain’t got a thing to say about it, eh? Well, I’m
not stayin’. No danged female can tell me what to do.”
“Where’d yuh go, you old ram?” asked Whisperin’.
“Well, I’d find a job, I’m three years younger than you are, Whisperin’,
I--I can get a job.”
“What doin’?”
“Punchin’ cows.”
“Yeah, you could! Can’t even fork a gentle horse.”
“You tryin’ to pick a fight with me, Whisperin’?”
“Fight, hell! I never fight with kids. Go out on the porch and quarrel
with Len; I’ve got to cook a meal.”
In the meantime Amos Baggs had secured a livery-stable rig and was
bringing Nan out to the Box S. The road was rutty, and the buggy springs
threatened to throw them both out at any time, so conversation was
limited.
“Of course, you’ll take charge of the place,” explained Baggs. “I’ll
handle all the details. Pollock said you had plenty of nerve, and he’s a
good judge of women. I suppose you might as well keep those two old men.
One is a very good cook. And I have decided that you will keep Len
Ayres. He is a good cow-man and can advise you in everything in that
line.”
“You mean the man who just came back from prison?”
“Exactly.”
“But is he a safe person to have around?” smiled Nan.
Baggs’s right hand went instinctively to his ear, but jerked back
quickly.
“I--I think so,” he faltered. “We’ll give him a trial. Try to make the
best of it, because it’s well worth your while. I’ll keep you
instructed.”
They drove in at the front of the ranch house, and Len met them.
Whispering and Sailor stayed in the kitchen, eyeing each other, as they
heard Len talking to Nan. The three of them came in the house together.
“I reckon you better occupy Harmony’s old room,” said Len. “It’s the
best in the place.”
Len led the way, carrying Nan’s valise. It was a rather small room, with
one big window and a single bed. The floor was covered with Navaho rugs
and on the walls were some old pictures. The top of an old dresser was
covered with a piece of calfskin, hair-side up, and above the dresser
hung two Winchester rifles, while twisted around a head-post of the bed
was an old cartridge belt, supporting a holstered Colt.
“I suppose we may as well remove the guns,” said Baggs.
“Not on my account,” said Nan.
“But you won’t want that six-shooter at the head of your bed,” said
Baggs.
“Leave it there, please,” replied Nan.
“Oh, well, if you really care for it.”
He turned to Len, in whose eyes was a glint of amusement.
“Miss Singer has decided to keep you, Ayres,” he said. “You will help
her run the place.”
Len bowed shortly.
“I’ll be going back now,” said Baggs. “I will keep in touch with you,
Miss Singer.”
“Thank you, Mr. Baggs.”
She and Len walked out on the porch and watched Baggs ride back down the
road. Len leaned against a porch-post, his eyes very sombre, as he
watched the dust cloud settle behind Baggs’s equipage. Nan brushed a
lock of hair from her forehead and studied Len’s profile for several
moments.
“You don’t like him, do you?” she asked.
“Baggs? No, I don’t reckon I do.”
“He asked me to keep you here.”
“Well, that shore was thoughtful of him,” smiled Len.
“Knock us down to the lady, will yuh?”
Len turned quickly. Just outside the door stood Whispering and Sailor,
side by side, as stiff as a pair of statues; Whispering’s huge frame
entirely blotting out the doorway, while little Sailor, his legs bowed a
trifle, seemed less than half the size of his big companion.
“Me and the kid want to meet the lady,” said Whispering, indicating
Sailor with a jerk of a huge thumb.
Their actions were so ludicrous that Nan wanted to scream, but they were
in deadly earnest.
“Miss Singer,” said Len hoarsely, “I want yuh to meet Whisperin’ Taylor
and Sailor Jones.
“Boys, this is Miss Singer, the new owner of the Box S.”
“T’meetcha,” said Sailor, jerking his head nervously.
“Shore a pleasure, ma’am,” said Whispering, and Sailor gave him a glance
filled with disgust.
Nan held out her hand to Whispering, who looked at it, looked at her,
but finally shook hands gently. The small, white hand looked too frail
for him to essay a real handshake. Sailor didn’t wait for a handshake,
but went back in the house.
“Well,” said Whispering resignedly, “the place belongs to you, ma’am.
We’re at yore beck and call, I reckon.”
“I don’t want you at my beck and call,” said Nan. “You will do just as
you have been in the habit of doing.”
“Minus the profanity,” added Len, grinning.
“Oh, shore--shore,” Whispering studied Nan’s face closely. “Yeah, I can
see old Harmony in yuh, ma’am. Yore eyes are kinda like hisn, except his
was brown. Yore uncle was a man. One of the whitest men on earth, I tell
yuh. His word was as good as a gold bond. He played the game according
to rules.”
Nan blinked quickly. These two men seemed to be measuring her to see if
she came up to the standard of Harmony Singer.
“Well, I--I hope I can make good,” she said. But she looked at Len
Ayres, and his greenish-gray eyes seemed to accuse her of a lie.
“You’ll make good,” he said softly. “After all, all yuh need to do is to
be honest and play the game on the square.”
“Be honest and play the game on the square,” she repeated to herself as
she sat in her room a few minutes later. Did he suspect that she wasn’t
on the square, she wondered?
She could hear the men talking in the kitchen, and she opened her door
just a few inches.
“By God, I never shook her hand!” said Sailor. “I never did kowtow to no
woman. I may work for her, but I’ll not shake her hand, Whisperin’. You
acted like a plumb fool over her. Yeah, yuh did! Didn’t I hear yuh say
that her eyes looked like the ones Harmony had? I shore did. Makin’ a
fuss over her eyes!”
“Well, she’s nice, ain’t she?” asked Whispering mildly.
“Nice? Oh, I s’pose she’s nice. Huh! I seen Len makin’ eyes at her, too.
I sh’d think he’d had enough of wimmin. Last one married ag’in almost
before the gate closed behind him. Well, it’s his business, I reckon. I
know I don’t want her.”
“By golly, that ort to relieve her, Sailor. I’ll betcha she’s tremblin’
in her room, waitin’ for somebody to tell her that you don’t want her.
Say, git me some wood. I’m minglin’ a reg’lar feed for this evenin’.”
“Panderin’ to her stummick?”
“I’ll pander to the seat of yore overalls, if yuh don’t shut yore yap
and git out of here.”
“Oh, I’ll go all right. You burn more wood than any danged cook I ever
seen. You ort to git a job in the North Woods. You’d burn all the timber
on a quarter section jist to bake one pan of biscuits.”
The kitchen door slammed shut. There was silence for several moments,
broken by a rattle of tin dishes in the kitchen, and then Whisperin’s
voice raised in song:
“‘Oh, glory be to me!’ says he, ‘and fame’s unfadin’ flowers,
I ride my good top hoss to-day, and I’m top hand of the Lazy J,
So Kitty-cat, you’re ours!’”
Came a verse of unintelligible words, and another chorus:
“‘Oh, glory be to me!’ says he, ‘we’ll hit the glory trail.
No man has lopped a lion’s head and lived to drag the critter dead,
Till I shall tell the tale.’”
It was the old southern Arizona cowboy song of High-Chin Bob, who tried
to subdue a mountain lion alone with a rope. Old Whisperin’s voice
quavered through the last chorus as Sailor came in to crash down his
armful of wood.
“Singin’ to her already, eh?” he sneered.
“You didn’t want her, didja, Sailor?”
“I don’t like to see you make a fool of yoreself at yore age,
Whisperin’.”
Nan softly closed her door and threw herself on the bed for a good cry,
but the tears would not come. Instead she laughed rather hysterically.
For some reason or other she couldn’t find anything to cry about, so she
sat up, powdered her nose and tried to think calmly.
“You are a despicable liar,” she told her image in the old mirror. “Just
a common thief, Nan Whitlock. You were weak enough to get into this
mess; now get yourself out clean.”