"Oh, there's time enough," urged Weary.
"Maybe--but--"
"Do yuh think we aren't well enough acquainted?"
"Well we're not exactly old friends," she laughed.
"We're going to be, so it's all the same," Weary surprised himself by
declaring with much emphasis. "You'd go, wouldn't you, if I was--well,
say your brother?"
Miss Satterly rested her chin in her palms and regarded him
measuringly. "I don't know. I never had one--except three or four
that I--er--adopted, at one time or another. I suppose one could go,
though--with a brother."
Weary made a rapid, mental note for the benefit of the Happy
Family--and particularly Cal Emmett. "Darling Brother" was a myth,
then; he ought to have known it, all along. And if that were a myth,
so probably were all those messages and things that he had hated. She
didn't care anything about him--and suddenly that struck him
unpleasantly, instead of being a relief, as it consistently should have
been.
"I wish you'd adopt me, just for to-night, and go;" he said, and his
eyes backed the wish. "You see," he added artfully, "it's a sin to
waste all that good music--a real, honest-to-God stringed orchestra
from Great Falls, and--"
"Meekers have taken both rigs," objected she, weakly.
"I noticed a side saddle hanging in the stable," he wheedled, "and I'll
gamble I can rustle something to put it on. I--"
"I should think you'd gambled enough for one day," she quelled. "But
that chunky little gray in the pasture is the horse I always ride. I
expect," she sighed, "my new dancing dress would be a sight to behold
when I got there--and it won't wash. But what does a mere man care--"
"Wrap it up in something, and I'll carry it for yuh," Weary advised
eagerly. "You can change at the hotel. It's dead easy." He picked up
his hat from the floor, rose and stood looking anxiously down at her.
"About how soon," he insinuated, "can you be ready?"
The schoolma'am looked up at him irresolutely, drew a long breath and
then laughed. "Oh, ten minutes will do," she surrendered. "I shall
put my new dress in a box, and go just as I am. Do you _always_ get
your own way, Mr. Davidson?"
"Always," he lied convincingly over his shoulder, and jumped off the
porch without bothering to use the steps.
She was waiting when he led the little gray up to the house, and she
came down the steps with a large, flat, pasteboard box in her arms.
"Don't get off," she commanded. "I can mount alone--and you'll have to
carry the box. It's going to be awkward, but you _would_ have me go."
Weary took the box and prudently remained in the saddle. Glory, having
the man he did for master, was unused to the flutter of women's skirts
so close, and rolled his eyes till the whites showed all round.
Moreover, he was not satisfied with that big, white thing in Weary's
arms.
He stood quite still, however, until the schoolma'am was settled to her
liking in the saddle, and had tucked her skirt down over the toe of her
right foot. He watched the proceeding with much interest--as did
Weary--and then walked sedately from the yard, through the pebbly creek
and up the slope beyond. He heard Weary give a sigh of relief at his
docility, and straightway thrust his nose between his white front feet,
and proceeded to carry out certain little plans of his own. Weary,
taken by surprise and encumbered by the box, could not argue the point;
he could only, in range parlance, "hang and rattle."
"Oh," cried Miss Satterly, "if he's going to act like that, give me the
box."
Weary would like to have done so, but already he was half way to the
gate, and his coat was standing straight out behind to prove the speed
of his flight. He could not even look back. He just hung tight to the
box and rode.
The little gray was no racer, but his wind was good; and with urging he
kept the fleeing Glory in sight for a mile or so. Then, horse and
rider were briefly silhouetted against the sunset as they topped a
distant hill, and after that the schoolma'am rode by faith.
At the gate which led into the big Flying U field she overtook them.
Glory, placid as a sheep, was nibbling a frayed end of the rope which
held the gate shut, and Weary, the big box balanced in front of him
across the saddle, was smoking a cigarette.
"Well," greeted Miss Satterly breathlessly, and rather tartly, "only
for you having my dress, I'd have gone straight back home. Do brothers
always act like this?"
"Search me," said Weary, shaking his head. "Anyway, yuh better talk to
Glory about it. He appears to be running this show. When I rode out
to your place, I didn't have any bit in his mouth at all. Coming back,
I've got one of Joe Meeker's teething rings, that wouldn't hold a pet
turkey. But we're going to the dance, Miss Satterly. Don't you worry
none about that."
Miss Satterly laughed and rode ahead of them. "I'm going," she
announced firmly. "It's leap year, and I think I can rustle a partner
if you decide to sit and look through that gate all night."
"You'll need your pretty dress. Glory ain't much used to escorting
young ladies, but he's a gentleman; we're coming, all right."
It was strange, perhaps, that Glory should miss the chance of proving
his master a liar, but he nevertheless ambled decorously to Dry Lake
and did nothing more unseemly than nipping occasionally at the neck of
the little gray.
That is how Weary learned that large, brown eyes do not look sidelong
at a man after the manner of long, heavy-lidded blue ones; and that,
also, is how he came to throw up his head and deny to himself and his
world that he ever was shy of women.