this.—Next thing, Seth yells at me, ‘Goin’ to stay here allnight?’
“‘Come on,’ I said to the girl, ‘and climb on board. But next time youwant a ride don’t flag a locomotive between stations.’ She followedalong; but when I got to the step and turned to give her a lift-up, shewasn’t there. I went forward again. Not a sign of her. Above and belowwas sheer cliff, and the track stretched ahead a hundred yards clear andempty. And then I spotted her, crouched down right against thecowcatcher, that close I’d almost stepped on her. If we’d started up,we’d have run over her in a second. It was all so nonsensical, I nevercould make out her actions. Maybe she was trying to suicide. I grabbedher by the wrist and jerked her none too gentle to her feet. And shecame along all right. Women do know when a man means business.”
I glanced from this Goliath to his little, bird-eyed spouse, and wonderedif he had ever tried to mean business with her.
“Seth kicked at first, but I boosted her into the cab and made her sit upbeside me—”
“And I suppose Seth was busy running the engine,” Mrs. Jones observed.
“I was breaking him in, wasn’t I?” Mr. Jones protested. “So we made therun into Amato. She’d never opened her mouth once, and no sooner’d theengine stopped than she’d jumped to the ground and was gone. Just likethat. Not a thank you kindly. Nothing.
“But next morning when we came to pull out for Quito with a dozen flatcars loaded with rails, there she was in the cab waiting for us; and inthe daylight I could see how much better a looker she was than the nightbefore.
“‘Huh! she’s adopted you,’ Seth grins. And it looked like it. She juststood there and looked at me—at us—like a loving hound dog that you love,that you’ve caught with a string of sausages inside of him, and that justknows you ain’t going to lift a hand to him. ‘Go chase yourself!’ I toldher _pronto_.” (Mrs. Jones her proximity noticeable with a wince at theSpanish word.) “You see, Sarah, I’d no use for her, even at the start.”
Mrs. Jones stiffened. Her lips moved soundlessly, but I knew to whatsyllables.
“And what made it hardest was Seth jeering at me. ‘You can’t shake herthat way,’ he said. ‘You saved her life—’ ‘I didn’t,’ I said sharply;‘it was you.’ ‘But she thinks you did, which is the same thing,’ he cameback at me. ‘And now she belongs to you. Custom of the country, as youought to know.’”
“Heathenish,” said Mrs. Jones, and though her steady gaze was set uponthe Tower of Jewels I knew she was making no reference to itsarchitecture.
“‘She’s come to do light housekeeping for you,’ Seth grinned. I let himrave, though afterwards I kept him throwing in the coal too fast to workhis mouth very much. Why, say, when I got to the spot where I picked herup, and stopped the train for her to get off, she just flopped down onher knees, got a hammerlock with her arms around my knees, and cried allover my shoes. What was I to do?”
With no perceptible movement that I was aware of, Mrs. Jones advertisedher certitude of knowledge of what _she_ would have done.
“And the moment we pulled into Quito, she did what she’d donebefore—vanished. Sarah never believes me when I say how relieved I feltto be quit of her. But it was not to be. I got to my ’dobe house andmanaged a cracking fine dinner my cook had ready for me. She was mostlySpiggoty and half Indian, and her name was Paloma.—Now, Sarah, haven’t Itold you she was older’n a grandmother, and looked more like a buzzardthan a dove? Why, I couldn’t bear to eat with her around where I couldlook at her. But she did make things comfortable, and she was someeconomical when it came to marketing.
“That afternoon, after a big long siesta, what’d I find in the kitchen,just as much at home as if she belonged there, but that blamed Indiangirl. And old Paloma was squatting at the girl’s feet and rubbing thegirl’s knees and legs like for rheumatism, which I knew the girl didn’thave from the way I’d sized up the walk of her, and keeping time to therubbing with a funny sort of gibberish chant. And I let loose rightthere and then. As Sarah knows, I never could a-bear women around thehouse—young, unmarried women, I mean. But it was no go! Old Palomasided with the girl, and said if the girl went she went, too. Also, shecalled me more kinds of a fool than the English language hasaccommodation for. You’d like the Spanish lingo, Sarah, for expressingyourself in such ways, and you’d have liked old Paloma, too. She was agood woman, though she didn’t have any teeth and her face could kill astrong man’s appetite in the cradle.
“I gave in. I had to. Except for the excuse that she needed Vahna’shelp around the house (which she didn’t at all), old Paloma never saidwhy she stuck up for the girl. Anyway, Vahna was a quiet thing, never inthe way. And she never gadded. Just sat in-doors jabbering with Palomaand helping with the chores. But I wasn’t long in getting on to that shewas afraid of something. She would look up, that anxious it hurt,whenever anybody called, like some of the boys to have a gas or a game ofpedro. I tried to worm it out of Paloma what was worrying the girl, butall the old woman did was to look solemn and shake her head like all thedevils in hell was liable to precipitate a visit on us.
“And then one day Vahna had a visitor. I’d just come in from a run andwas passing the time of day with her—I had to be polite, even if she hadbutted in on me and come to live in my house for keeps—when I saw a queerexpression come into her eyes. In the doorway stood an Indian boy. Helooked like her, but was younger and slimmer. She took him into thekitchen and they must have had a great palaver, for he didn’t leave untilafter dark. Inside the week he came back, but I missed him. When I gothome, Paloma put a fat nugget of gold into my hand, which Vahna had senthim for. The blamed thing weighed all of two pounds and was worth morethan five hundred dollars. She explained that Vahna wanted me to take itto pay for her keep. And I had to take it to keep peace in the house.
“Then, after a long time, came another visitor. We were sitting beforethe fire—”
“Him and the hussy,” quoth Mrs. Jones.
“And Paloma,” he added quickly.
“Him and his cook and his light housekeeper sitting by the fire,” sheamended.
“Oh, I admit Vahna did like me a whole heap,” he asserted recklessly,then modified with a pang of caution: “A heap more than was good for her,seeing that I had no inclination her way.
“Well, as I was saying, she had another visitor. He was a lean, tall,white-headed old Indian, with a beak on him like an eagle. He walkedright in without knocking. Vahna gave a little cry that was half like ayelp and half like a gasp, and flumped down on her knees before me,pleading to me with deer’s eyes and to him with the eyes of a deer aboutto be killed that don’t want to be killed. Then, for a minute thatseemed as long as a life-time, she and the old fellow glared at eachother. Paloma was the first to talk, in his own lingo, for he talkedback to her. But great Moses, if he wasn’t the high and mighty one!Paloma’s old knees were shaking, and she cringed to him like a hound dog.And all this in my own house! I’d have thrown him out on his neck, onlyhe was so old.
“If the things he said to Vahna were as terrible as the way he looked!Say! He just spit words at her! But Paloma kept whimpering and buttingin, till something she said got across, because his face relaxed. Hecondescended to give me the once over and fired some question at Vahna.She hung her head, and looked foolish, and blushed, and then replied witha single word and a shake of the head. And with that he just naturallyturned on his heel and beat it. I guess she’d said ‘No.’
“For some time after that Vahna used to fluster up whenever she saw me.Then she took to the kitchen for a spell. But after a long time shebegan hanging around the big room again. She was still mighty shy, butshe’d keep on following me about with those big eyes of hers—”
“The hussy!” I heard plainly. But Julian Jones and I were pretty wellused to it by this time.
“I don’t mind saying that I was getting some interested myself—oh, not inthe way Sarah never lets up letting me know s
he thinks. That two-poundnugget was what had me going. If Vahna’d put me wise to where it camefrom, I could say good-bye to railroading and hit the high places forNebraska and Sarah.
“And then the beans were spilled . . . by accident. Come a letter fromWisconsin. My Aunt Eliza ’d died and up and left me her big farm. I letout a whoop when I read it; but I could have canned my joy, for I wasjobbed out of it by the courts and lawyers afterward—not a cent to me,and I’m still paying ’m in instalments.
“But I didn’t know, then; and I prepared to pull back to God’s country.Paloma got sore, and Vahna got the weeps. ‘Don’t go! Don’t go!’ Thatwas her song. But I gave notice on my job, and wrote a letter to Sarahhere—didn’t I, Sarah?
“That night, sitting by the fire like at a funeral, Vahna really loosenedup for the first time.
“‘Don’t go,’ she says to me, with old Paloma nodding agreement with her.‘I’ll show you where my brother got the nugget, if you don’t go.’ ‘Toolate,’ said I. And I told her why.
“And told her about