"I have something--very awkward--to say to you, Wallie."
The harried expression which was becoming chronic leaped into his eyes at the introduction, as he asked himself what now might be portending.
"It"s rather indelicate to discuss with a gentleman," she continued, braiding her fingers.
Wallie was alarmed but, anxious to set her at her ease, he said encouragingly:
"You can talk as freely to me as if I were your--father."
He had not had time to visualize himself as Aunt Lizzie"s father when she went on in a short-breathed fashion:
"I fear that I shall have to leave you, Wallie, as soon as possible."
Wallie"s wonder grew, but he said nothing.
"I think--I fear--I believe," she stammered, "that Mr. Hicks is of a very ardent temperament."
Wallie could not have spoken now had he wanted to.
"Since yesterday I have found him looking at me frequently in a peculiar manner. Last night he stared at me with his burning eyes until I could feel his hypnotic influence. I hope--I trust you will believe I have not given him any encouragement?"
Wallie"s jaw, which had fallen, prevented him from rea.s.suring her that he believed her blameless.
"So far, the tongue of scandal has never laid hands on me," she declared, mixing her metaphors in her agitation, "but I feel that it is a risk I should not take to travel about the country with a company of men and only an unmarried woman in the party."
Wallie managed to mumble:
"You are as safe here as if you were in a convent, Aunt Lizzie."
It would have seemed from her expression that she preferred not to think so, however.
"You understand how I feel, don"t you?" she pleaded.
"Perfectly! Perfectly!" Wallie replied, too dazed to make any other answer. He would have been only a little less astounded if the old lady had announced her intention of opening a dance-hall upon her return to Prouty.
Aunt Lizzie"s desertion, and for such a reason, was the last thing he had antic.i.p.ated. It seemed like the final straw laid upon a back already breaking. He watched her toddle away, and sat down again gloomily.
At the supply-wagon Mr. Hicks was putting the food away, commenting profanely upon the flies, the heat, the tardiness of Mr. Stott, the injustice of things in general, and in particular the sordid necessity which obliged him to occupy this humble position when he was so eminently fitted to fill a higher one.
He threw a stick at a "camp-robber" that had flown down and taken a pick at a plate on a stump which contained the lunch he had saved for Mr. Stott, and his expression was so diabolic that it was the first time for many days that he had looked natural.
"Red" McGonnigle, with his hat over his face, dozed in the shade of the bed-wagon. Aunt Lizzie busied herself with preparations for departure.
Miss Eyester perused the testimonials for a patent medicine contained in a pamphlet left by previous campers. Insects droned, heat waves shimmered, the horses stood sleeping in their nose-bags. It was a peaceful noon-day scene, but Macpherson and Company, now sitting on their heels discussing their prospects, or lack of them, had no eye for it.
One thought was uppermost, their bubble was punctured, they were worse than ruined, for their horses and outfit were mortgaged almost up to their value, and in addition, they had borrowed at the bank, counting on paying off all their indebtedness when the Park trip was finished.
"I s"pose I can git a job herdin" sheep--they"s good money in it--but I"ll be an old man before I can afford to git married, to say nothin" of the disgrace of it." Pinkey"s voice sounded hopeless.
The plaint gave Wallie such a pang that he could not answer, but with a twig played a game of tick-tack-toe in the dust, while he thought bitterly that no one could blame Helene Spenceley for preferring Canby to a person who seemed destined to failure in whatever he attempted.
He was another of the "four-flushers," he told himself, and the country was full of them, who just fell short of doing something and being somebody. Probably, in time, he would have no ambition beyond working for a "grub-stake" in summer so he could "shack up" in winter. He would let his hair grow, and go sockless, and buy new clothes rather than wash his old ones, and eat from soiled dishes, and read mail-order catalogues for entertainment, and dog-gone it! why couldn"t he bring himself to think of marrying some respectable girl like the blacksmith"s daughter there in Prouty, who had no chin and a fine complexion and cooked like an angel and never said a cross word to anybody?
Since Wallie was too uncommunicative to be interesting, Pinkey got up and left him to his reflections, remarking philosophically as he departed to join Miss Eyester:
"Well, I never heard of anybody bein" hanged for owin" money, so I guess there"s no use in us goin" around with the double-breasted blues over it. We might as well whistle and say we like it."
Wallie looked after his partner almost angrily.
Oh, yes, it was well enough for him to talk about being cheerful and not worrying, but he guessed he would not be so chipper and so easily resigned to disappointment if he had nothing more to which to look forward than he had.
The lugubrious voice of Mr. Hicks declaiming reached him:
"Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling!
The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter--and the bird is on the wing."
That was the worst of it, Wallie thought despairingly. The Bird of Time had but a little way to flutter. He was so old--twenty-seven! The realization that he was still a failure at this advanced age increased his misery. He was a fool to go on hoping that he meant anything to Helene Spenceley or ever would; but, just the same--Wallie stood up and squared his shoulders--if he couldn"t have the woman he wanted there wouldn"t be any other! He would sell his place for what he could get for it, pay his debts, and go to Tahiti and be a beach-comber, or to Guatemala and start a revolution, or live a hermit in the Arctic Circle, trapping for a fur company! He would do whatever he could to forget her.
Then, suddenly, he wished that he was a little boy again and could sit on Aunt Mary"s lap and lay his head on her shoulder the way he used to when he came home from school with a sick headache. It always had comforted him. A heartache was worse than a headache by a whole lot.
Somehow he was so lonely--so inexpressibly lonely. He had not felt like this even that first winter on his homestead.
A lump rose in his throat to choke him, and he was about to turn away lest someone see the mist in his eyes that blinded him, and that he felt horribly ashamed of, when the sound of hoofs attracted his attention and caused him to grow alert in an instant.
He was sure that it was Stott returning, and then he caught a glimpse of him through the trees--galloping.
"Oh, here you are!" exclaimed that person, irritably, as he turned off the road and came through the brush toward Wallie.
There was a bright shine in Wallie"s eyes as he walked toward him.
"Why didn"t you tell me you were going to camp in the middle of the morning?" Stott demanded in his rasping voice as he dismounted.
Wallie returned evenly:
"You know as well as I do that choosing a camp is left to Hicks"
judgment. I told you not to get ahead of the supply-wagon."
"If you think I"m going to poke along behind like a snail, you"re mistaken!" Stott retorted.
Wallie"s face went white under its tan, though his voice was quiet enough as he answered:
"You"ll "poke" this afternoon, I"m thinking."
Stott turned sharply.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Just what I said. Look at that horse!"
The buckskin"s head was hanging, its legs were trembling, there was not a dry hair on it and the sweat was running in rivulets. Its sides were swollen at the stirrup where the spurs had p.r.i.c.ked it, and the corners of its mouth were raw and bleeding.