JOE
After a deep and dreamless sleep of seven hours, Vane opened his eyes
and beheld Jard Hassock standing beside his bed.
“Mister, you’re a wonder!” exclaimed Jard. “I didn’t get it all last
night, we was that busy runnin’ round pertendin’ we was tryin’ to put
out the fire, jist to fool old Dave—but Tom McPhee’s been here this
mornin’. What d’ye say to ham an’ aigs an’ hot biscuits?”
“In ten minutes I’ll show you,” replied Vane, sitting up.
“Now you stop right where you are,” returned the other. “I’m fetchin’ it
on a tray—an’ proud to do it! Say, Tom’s told me all about how you
flopped that ladder over an’ skun up an’ div head first through that
window! It was Tom McPhee you passed Joe out to. A cool head an’ a cool
hand, mister—an’ them’s things I admire. Tea or coffee?”
“It was easy,” said Vane. “There was no danger. How’s Joe?”
“Fine an’ dandy this mornin’, but ten minutes more of the smoke would of
done the trick, the doctor says. Did you say coffee, or tea?”
“Coffee, if it’s the same to you, thanks very much.”
Hassock went, but was back in ten minutes with a large tray loaded to
capacity. Later he even fetched a pail of hot water, then returned to
the kitchen, leaving Vane to his own devices. He sat down in a
splint-bottomed chair close to the kitchen stove, and lit his pipe.
“It’s him,” he said to his sister. “He’s the very identical lad we heard
about who stopped a week at Wilson’s camp an’ washed himself all over in
the little rubber bathtub you could fold up an’ put in your pocket. It’s
him. I kinder guessed it last night. His name’s Vane.”
“Well, there’s no harm in a bath,” replied Miss Hassock. “A good wash
all over never hurt anyone, that I’ve ever heard tell of.”
“But three in one week, Liza!”
“Well, what of it, so long’s he had the time an’ didn’t catch cold? Now
if it was only summer time an’ the pump was workin’ an’ the pipes wasn’t
all froze up, he could use the bathroom.”
“If he sees it he’ll maybe stop till summer time jist to try it out.”
“Maybe. What’s brought him to Forkville, anyhow?”
“You ask him, Liza. I’d like fine to know. Whatever brought him, he come
jist in time for Joe Hinch, that’s a sure thing. He’s a cool hand,
whatever he’s after; an’ he knows how many beans makes five, I reckon.”
“What was he doin’ out to Wilson’s camp?”
“Snoopin’ ’round in the woods all day an’ swappin’ yarns with the boys
at night, that’s all, far’s I ever heard. He paid for his grub.”
Jard Hassock was a bachelor and Liza was a spinster. Liza was tall,
large-boned and large-featured, square-shouldered, mannish looking and
ten years Jard’s senior—sixty years of age, if a day. She was
straighter than Jard, who suffered from a chronic rheumatic crick in the
back. She was level-headed, extraordinarily capable—and extraordinarily
soft-hearted. She could do anything outdoors or in, from plowing sod to
whipping cream, and do it right. Her hand was light and sure at the
cooking, and light and sure on a horse’s mouth. Her knowledge of horses
was as great as Jard’s, and her ways with them were as wise as his, but
she never said so, and he never thought so. Jard didn’t know that she
was his guardian and his manager; he didn’t realize that he would have
been cheated out of his very boots years ago but for her; but other
people knew these things and stood in awe of her.
Vane appeared in the kitchen a few minutes later. He bowed to Miss
Hassock, and thanked her for the breakfast, making special mention of
the coffee. Jard had his eyes on Liza, though she was not aware of it.
That was the way with Jard. One either did not feel his glance or did
not heed it, for it never suggested a search for anything more important
than a humorous point of view or intention. A great joker was Jard
Hassock in his own dry way; but the fact is that he looked at life and
people for many things beside jokes and could see them as quickly and as
far as the next man. And now he saw that Liza was pleased with the
stranger.
“I’ll go fetch my pipe, an’ then I’ll show you around outside,” he said
to the guest, and presently they were sauntering in the direction of the
stables. Here were six open stalls on one side of the floor and two box
stalls and a room devoted to harness and oat bins on the other. Only two
open stalls and one box stall were occupied.
“There was a time when I had two work teams an’ a roadster, an’ a bit of
speed in every box,” said Jard. “But I’ve cut down the farmin’ of late,
an’ I’ve quit breedin’ an’ racin’ altogether. Twice stung, once
shy—that’s me.”
Vane murmured something sympathetic, and examined the two medium-sized,
elderly farm beasts in the stalls with polite interest, patting their
noses, laying a finger here and there, shooting quick glances at their
legs. Not a glance or movement of this escaped Jard, who watched him
with a twinkle in one eye and a probe in the other.
“Very useful,” was the stranger’s comment.
Jard nodded and crossed the floor and opened the upper wing of the door
of one of the boxes.
“Look a-heer at something different,” he said. “Lady Firefly.”
Vane joined him and looked into the roomy, well lighted box. A roan
filly turned and thrust a silken muzzle into Jard’s face, then into his
hand.
“Some speed, there, I wouldn’t wonder,” continued Hassock.
“I shouldn’t wonder,” replied Vane. “How old is she?”
“Sixteen months. She’s a granddaughter of the Willy Horse’s sister—or
maybe it was his half-sister. You can’t get much information out of old
Luke Dangler. You said you’d heard tell of the Willy Horse, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, this here’s the same strain. There was an English mare come to
this country a hundred years ago. Her name was Willoughby Girl. Ever
hear of her?”
“Yes, I have heard of Willoughby Girl,” said Vane quietly.
Jard Hassock leaned nearer to the stranger, shoulder to shoulder.
“There’s her blood in this here filly,” he whispered. “I’ll tell you
about it. It’s a queer story, an’ a bit of history—— Hark!” he said.
“Was that Liza hollerin’?”
It was Liza, beyond a doubt; and Jard left the stable to see what she
wanted of him. He was back in half a minute.
“It’s Joe Hinch come over from McPhee’s to thank you for the good work
you done last night,” he informed Vane.
“That was nothing,” said Vane. “I just happened to be
Johnny-on-the-spot, that’s all.”
“You best come along in with me, anyhow,” returned Jard. “It’ll be best
for you an’ best for me, mister—for Liza told me to fetch you.”
Vane went. In the big kitchen they found Miss Hassock and a young woman.
Vane doffed his cap and glanced around, but failed to see anything of
the lad he had dragged out of bed. His glance returned inquiringly to
the faces of Liza and the young woman.
“Joe, this is the gent who saved your precious life last night,” said
Jard. “Meet Mr. Vane.”
The stranger was a man of breeding, and a man of the world to boot—but
Jard’s words threw him off his mental balance into a spiritual and
mental fog, and left him there. Again he sent a searching glance into
the corners of the room and even behind the stove in quest of Joe. He
didn’t move anything but his eyes. He didn’t say a word. His baffled
glance returned to the young woman. Again his eyes met hers, again she
smiled faintly, and now she blushed. She was moving toward him; and this
she continued to do until she was within two feet of him. She extended a
hand, which he took and held, acting by instinct rather than by reason.
She lowered her glance.
“I thank you—very, very much,” she said somewhat breathlessly. “It was
very—kind of you—and brave.”
“I—don’t mention it, but——”
“She’s Joe,” said Miss Hassock, suddenly enlightened.
“The one you drug out of bed,” said Jard.
“Josephine,” whispered the young woman, bowing her head yet lower and
gently attempting to withdraw her hand.
Vane saw it. It dawned on him. The blood crawled up beyond his neck
again and fed his brain, and the fog melted away.
“Ah!—of course,” he said. “It was you. I am glad.”
He bowed and gently released her hand. She murmured a few more words of
gratitude, then slipped away.
“Why wouldn’t she stop to dinner?” asked Jard of his sister. “I asked
her to often enough and hearty enough; an’ even if I hadn’t, I guess she
knows she’s always welcome here.”
“She’s only twenty-three, that’s why,” returned Miss Hassock. “If she
was my age she’d of stopped.”
“Twenty-three? Well, reckon she is—but what’s her age got to do with
stoppin’ here to dinner?” demanded Jard.
“All her own clothes got burnt up,” replied Liza. “They weren’t many nor
much, but they fitted her to a wish, for she made every stitch herself,
outside an’ inside. What she has on this mornin’ belongs to Susan
McPhee, who’s near as tall as me an’ bigger round everywheres.”
“I get you,” said Jard. “That’s the woman of her! A queen in one skirt
an’ a scart rabbit in another! But she looked all right to me. Didn’t
she look all right, Mr. Vane?”
“Very charming, I thought,” replied Vane.
“Better’n you expected, hey?”
“Yes. I had no idea, no suspicion, of the truth.”
“What did you cal’late this Joe was, anyhow?”
“A stable-boy, or something of that sort. A quite natural mistake, under
the circumstances.”
“It don’t sound to me like a mistake a gentleman would make. The
prettiest girl on this river—the prettiest girl I ever see—that’s Joe
Hinch; an’ you grab her out of bed an’ pass her through the window an’
think she’s a stable-boy!”
“What of it? I couldn’t see!” retorted Vane.
Jard wagged his head.
[Illustration]