PART FOUR
Weary clattered up to the school-house door to find it erupting diversspecimens of young America--by adoption, some of them. He greeted eachone cheerfully by name and waited upon his horse in the shade.
Close behind the last sun-bonnet came Miss Satterly, key in hand.Evidently she had no intention of lingering, that night; Weary smileddown upon her tentatively and made a hasty guess as to her state ofmind--a very important factor in view of what he had come to say.
"It's awful hot, Schoolma'am; if I were you I'd wait a while--till thesun lets up a little."
To his unbounded surprise, Miss Satterly calmly sat down upon thedoorstep. Weary promptly slid out of the saddle and sat down besideher, thankful that the step was not a wide one. "You've beenunmercifully hard to locate since the dance," he complained. "I liketo lost my job, chasing over this way, when I was supposed to be headedanother direction. I came by here last night at five minutes afterfour, and you weren't in sight anywhere; was yesterday a holiday?"
"You probably didn't look in the window," said the schoolma'am. "I waswriting letters here till after five."
"With the door shut and locked?"
"The wind blew so," explained Miss Satterly, lamely. "And that lock--"
"First I knew of the wind blowing yesterday. It was as hot as the hubsuh he--as blue blazes when I came by. There weren't any windows up,even--I hope you was real comfortable."
"Perfectly," she assured him.
"I'll gamble yuh were! Well, and where were yuh cached last Sunday?"
"Nowhere. I went with Bert and Miss Forsyth up in the mountains. Wetook our lunch and had a perfectly lovely time."
"I'm glad somebody had a good time. I got away at nine o'clock andcame over to Meeker's--and you weren't there; so I rode the rim-rockstill sundown, trying to locate yuh. It's easier hunting strays in theBad Lands."
Miss Satterly seemed about to speak, but she changed her mind and gazedat the coulee-rim.
"It's hard to get away, these days," Weary went on explaining. "Iwanted to come before the dance, but we were gathering some stuff outthe other way, and I couldn't. The Old Man is shipping, yuh see; we'reholding a bunch right now, waiting for cars. I got Happy Jack to standherd in my place, is how I got here."
The schoolma'am yawned apologetically into her palm. Evidently she wasnot greatly interested in the comings and goings of Weary Davidson.
"How did yuh like the dance?" he asked, coming to the subject that heknew was the vital point.
"Lovely," said the schoolma'am briefly, but with fervor.
"Different here," asserted Weary. "I drifted, right before supper."
"_Did_ you?" Miss Satterly accented the first word in a way she taughther pupils indicated surprise. "I don't reckon you noticed it. Youwere pretty busy, about then."
Miss Satterly laughed languid assent.
"I never knew before that Bert Rogers was any relation of MyrtForsyth," observed Weary, edging still nearer the vital point. "Theysure aren't much alike."
"You used to know her?" asked Miss Satterly, politely.
"Well, I should say yes. I used to go to school with Myrt. How do youlike her?"
"Lovely," said Miss Satterly, this time without fervor.
Weary began digging a trench with his spurs. He wished the schoolma'amwould not limit herself so rigidly to that one adjective. It becameunmeaning with much use, so that it left a fellow completely in thedark.
"Just about everybody says that about her--at first," he remarked.
"Did you?" she asked him, still politely.
"I did a heap worse than that," said Weary, grimly determined. "I hada bad case of calf-love and made a fool uh myself generally."
"What fun!" chirped the schoolma'am with an unconvincing little laugh.
"Not for me, it wasn't. Whilst I had it I used to pack a lock uh thatred hair in my breast pocket and heave sighs over it that near liftedme out uh my boots. Oh, I was sure earnest! But she did me thebiggest favor she could; a slick-haired piano-tuner come to town andshe turned me down for him. I was plumb certain my heart was bustedwide open, at the time, though." Weary laughed reminiscently.
"She said--I think you misunderstood her. She appears to--" MissSatterly, though she felt that she was being very generous, did notquite know how to finish.
"Not on your life! It was the first time I ever did understand Myrt.When I left there I wasn't doing any guessing."
"You shouldn't have left," she told him suddenly; gripping her courageat this bold mention of his flight. How she wished she knew why heleft.
"Oh, I don't know. It was about the only thing I could do, at thetime--the only thing, that is, that I wanted to do. It seemed like Icouldn't get away fast enough." It was brazen of him, she thought, totreat it all so coolly. "And out here," he added thoughtfully, "Icould get the proper focus on Myrt--which I couldn't do back there."
"Distance lends--"
"Not in this case," he interrupted. "It's when you're right with Myrtthat she kinda hypnotizes yuh into thinking what she wants yuh tothink." He was remembering resentfully the dance.
"But to sneak away--"
"That's a word I don't remember was ever shot at me before," saidWeary, the blood showing through the skin on his cheeks. "If thatdamned Myrt has been telling yuh--"
"I didn't think you would speak like that about a woman, Mr. Davidson,"said the schoolma'am with disapproval in her tone; and the disapprovalnot going very deep, there was the more of it upon the surface.
"I suppose it gives evidence of a low, brutal trait in my nature, thatyou hoped I couldn't harbor," acceded Weary meekly.
"It does," snapped the schoolma'am, her cheeks hot. If she hadrepented her flare of temper over the gopher, she certainly did notintend letting him know it too soon. She seemed inclined to disciplinehim a bit.
Weary smoked silently and raked up the sun-baked soil with his spurs."How long is Myrt going to stay?" he ventured at last.
"I never asked her," she retorted. "You ought to know--you probablyhave seen her last." The schoolma'am blundered, there.
Weary drew a sigh of relief; if she were jealous, it must mean that shecared. "That's right. I saw her last night," he stated calmly.
Miss Satterly sat more erect, if that were possible. She had not knownof this last meeting, and she had merely shot at random, anyway.
"At least," he amended, watching her from the corner of his eye, "I sawa woman and a man ride over the hill back of Denson's, last night. Theman was Bert, and the woman had red hair; I took it to be Myrt."
"You surely should be a good judge," remarked Miss Satterly, irritatedbecause she knew he was teasing.
Weary was quick to read the signs. "What did you mean, a while back,about me sneaking away from Chadville? And how did yuh happen to haveyour dances booked forty-in-advance, the other night? And what makesyuh so mean to me, lately? And will yuh take a jaunt over Eagle Butteway with me next Sunday--if I can get off?"
The schoolma'am, again feeling herself mistress of the situation,proceeded with her disciplining. She smiled, raised one hand andchecked off the questions upon her fingers. You never would guess howoddly her heart was behaving--she looked such a self-possessed youngwoman.
"I'll begin at the last one and work backward," she said, calmly. "AndI must hurry, for aunt Meeker hates to keep supper waiting. No, I will_not_ go for a jaunt over Eagle Butte way next Sunday. I have otherplans; if I _hadn't_ other plans I still would not go. I hope this isquite plain to you?"
"Oh, it's good and plain," responded Weary. "But for the Lord's sakedon't take up that talking in italics like Myrt does. I can't standthis bearing down hard on every other word. It sets my teeth all onedge."
The schoolma'am opened her eyes wider. Was it possible Weary wasacquiring an irritable temper? "_Second_," she went on deliberately,"I do not _consider_ that I have been _mean_ to you; and if I _have_ itis because I _choose_ to be so."
/>
Weary, observing a most flagrant accent, shut his lips rather tightlytogether.
"Third--let me see. Oh, that about the _dances_; I can only say thatwe _women_, as a means of _self-defence_, claim the privilege of_effacing_ undesirable, would-be partners by a certain _form_ ofrejection, which _eliminates_ the necessity of going into unpleasant_details_, and--er--lets the fellow down easy." The schoolma'am'semphasis and English seemed to collapse together, but Weary did notnotice that.
"I'm sure grateful to be let down easy," he said softly, withoutlooking up; his head was bent so that his hat quite concealed from theschoolma'am his face, but if she had known him longer, perhaps shewould have gone carefully after that.
"As to your sneaking away from--wherever it was--surely, you ought toknow about that better than I do. One must go far to outdistancedishonor, for a man's misdeeds are sure to follow him, soon or late. Iwill not go into details--but you understand what I mean."
"No," said Weary, still with bent head, "I'll be darned if I do. Andif I did, I know about where to locate the source of all theinformation you've loaded up on. Things were going smooth as silk tillMyrt Forsyth drifted out here--the red-headed little devil!"
"Mr. Davidson!" cried the schoolma'am, truly shocked.
"Oh, I'm revealing some more low, brutal instincts, I expect I'm liableto reveal a lot more if I hang around much longer." He stopped, as ifthere was more he wanted to say, and was doubtful of the wisdom ofsaying it.
"I came over to say something--something particular--but I've changedmy mind. I guess yuh haven't much time to listen, and I don't believeit would interest yuh as much as I thought it would--a while back. Youjust go ahead and make a bosom friend uh Myrt Forsyth, Schoolma'am, andbelieve every blamed lie she tells yuh. I won't be here to argue thepoint. Looks to me like I'm about due to drift."
Miss Satterly, dumb with fear of what his words might mean, sat stifflywhile Weary got up and mounted Glory in a business like manner that wasextremely disquieting.
"I wish you could a cared, Girlie," he said with a droop of hisunsmiling mouth and a gloom in his eyes when he looked at her. "I wasa chump, I reckon, to ever imagine yuh could. Good-bye--and be goodto--yourself." He leaned to one side, swung backward his feet andGlory, obeying the signal, wheeled and bounded away.
Miss Satterly watched him gallop up the long slope and the plucketypluckety of Glory's fleeing feet struck heavy, numbing blows upon herheart. She wondered why she had refused to ride with him, when she didwant to go--she did. And why had she been so utterly hateful, afterwaiting and watching, night after night, for him to come?
And just how much did he mean by being due to drift? He couldn't bereally angry--and what was he going to say--the thing he changed hismind about. Was it--Well, he would come again in a few days, and then--