"Now, Ward, don"t be silly." The fright in her voice was overlaid with a sharpened tenderness. "You know perfectly well I didn"t mean that.
You"re only proving that in the human problem you"re raised to-- Stop looking darning-needles at that coffee-pot and listen here!" Billy Louise leaned over the table and caught at his nearest hand, which was a closed fist. With her own little fingers digging persistently into the tensed muscles, she pried the fist open. "Ward, behave yourself, or I"ll go straight home!" She held his straightened fingers in her own and drew a sharp breath because they lay inert--dead things so far as any response came to her clasp; the first and middle fingers yellowed a little from cigarettes, the nails soft and pink from much immersion in water. A tale they told, if Billy Louise had been paying attention.
"Ward, you certainly are--the limit! You know as well as I do that that doesn"t make a particle of difference. If I had been a boy instead of a girl, and had bucked the world for a living, I"d probably have done worse; and, anyway, it doesn"t matter!" Her voice rose as if she were growing desperate. "I--I--like you--to pieces, Ward, and I"d--I"d rather marry you--than anyone else. But I don"t want to think about that for a long while. I don"t want to be engaged, or--or any different than the way we"ve been. It was good to be just pals. It was like my pretend Ward. I--I always wanted him--to love me, but I wouldn"t play that he--told me, Ward. Oh, don"t you see?" She shut her teeth hard together, because if she hadn"t she would have been crying in another ten seconds.
"I see." Ward spoke dully, evenly, and he still stared at the coffee-pot with that gimlet gaze of his that made Billy Louise want to scream. "I see a whole lot that I"d been shutting my eyes to. Why don"t you feel insulted--"
"Ward Warren, if you"re going to act like a--a--" I suspect that Billy Louise, in her desperation, was tempted to use a swear word, but she resisted the temptation. She got up and went around to him, hesitated while she looked down at his set face, drew a long breath, and blinked back some tears of self-reproach because of the devils of memory she had unwittingly turned loose to jibe at this man.
"This is why," she said softly; and leaning, she pressed her lips down upon his bitter ones and let them lie there for a dozen heart-beats.
Ward"s face relaxed, and his eyes went to hers with the hungry tenderness she had seen so often there. He leaned his head against her and threw up an arm to clasp her close. He did not say a word.
"After I have kissed a man," said Billy Louise, struggling back to her old whimsical manner, "it won"t be a bit polite for him to have any doubts of my feelings toward him, or my belief in him, or his belief in himself." Her fingers tangled themselves in his hair, just where the wave was the most p.r.o.nounced.
She had drawn the poison. Now she set herself to restore a perfectly normal atmosphere.
"He"s going to be just exactly the same good pal he was before," she went on, speaking softly. "And he"s going to bring some water so I can wash the dishes, and then bring Blue so I can go home, and he isn"t going to say a single thing more about--anything that matters two whoops."
Ward"s clasp tightened and then grew loose. He drew a long breath and let her go.
"You do like me--a little bit, don"t you?" His eyes were like the eyes of the d.a.m.ned asking for water.
"I like you two little bits." Billy Louise took his face between her two palms and smiled down at him bravely, with the pure candor that was a part of her. "But I don"t want us to be anything but pals; not for a long while. It"s so good, just being friends. And once we get away from that point, we can"t go back to it again, ever. And I"m sure it"s good enough to be worth while making it last as long as we can. So now--"
"It"s going to be quite a contract, Wilhemina." Ward still looked at her with his heart in his eyes.
"Oh, no, it won"t! You"ve had lots of practice," Billy Louise a.s.sured him confidently and began putting the few dishes in a neat little pile.
"And, anyway, you are perfectly able to handle any kind of a contract.
All you need do is make up your mind. And that"s made up already. So the next thing on the programme is to bring a bucket of water. Did you notice anything different about your cabin? I thought you bragged to me about being such a good housekeeper! Why, you hadn"t swept the floor, even, since goodness knows when. And I"ve made up a bundle of your dirty shirts and things that I found under the bed, and I"m going to take them home and let Phoebe wash them. She can do them this evening and have them ready for you to bring back to-morrow. When I was a kid and went to see Marthy and Jase, I used to promise them cookies with "raisings" in the middle. I thought there was nothing better in the world. I was just thinking--I"ll maybe bake you some cookies with raisings on top, to bring home. You don"t seem to waste much time cooking stuff. Bacon and beans, and potatoes and sour-dough bread: that seems to be your regular bill of fare. And tomatoes for Sunday, I reckon; I saw some empty cans outside. Don"t you ever feel like coming down to the ranch and getting a square meal?"
"Oh, you William the Conqueror!" Ward stood with the water bucket in his hand, and looked at her with that smile hidden just behind his lips and his eyes. "You sure sabe how to make things come your way, don"t you?" He started for the door, stopped with his toes over the threshold, and looked back at her. "If I knew how to get what I want, as easily as you do," he said, "we"d be married and keeping house before to-morrow night!" He laughed grimly at the start she gave. "As it is, you"re the doctor, William Louisa. We remain mere friends!"
With that he went off to the creek.
He was gone at least four times as long as was necessary, but he came back whistling, and he did not make love to her except with his eyes.
CHAPTER X
THIS PAL BUSINESS
"You"ve got quite a lot of hay put up, I see," Billy Louise remarked, when they were leaving.
"Sure. I told you I"ve been working." Ward"s tone was cheerful to the point of exuberance. He felt as though he could work day and night now, with the memory of Billy Louise"s lips upon his own.
"You never put up that hay alone," she told him bluntly, "and you needn"t try to make me believe you did. I know better."
"How do you know?" Ward glanced over his shoulder at the stack, then humorously at her. He recognized the futility of trying to fool Billy Louise, but he was in the mood to tease her.
"Humph! I"ve helped stack hay myself, if you please. I can tell a one-man stack when I see it. Who did you get to help? Junkins?"
"No, a half-baked hobo I ran across. I had him here a month."
"Oh! Are those your horses down there? They can"t be." Last April, Billy Louise had been very well informed as to Ward"s resources. She was evidently trying to match her knowledge of their well-defined limitations with what she saw now of prosperity in its first stages.
"They are, though. A dandy span of mares. I got a bargain there."
Billy Louise pondered a minute. "Ward, you aren"t going into debt, are you?" Her tone was anxious. "It"s so beastly hard to get out, once you"re in!"
"I don"t owe anybody a red cent, William Louisa. Honest."
"Well, but--" Billy Louise looked at him from under puckered brows.
Ward laughed oddly. "I"ve been working, William. Last spring I--hunted wolves for awhile; old ones and dens. They"d killed a couple of calves for me, and I got out after them. I--made good at it; the bounty counts up pretty fast, you know."
"Yes-s, it does." Billy Louise bit her lips thoughtfully, turned and looked back at the haystack, at the long line of new, wire fence, and at the two heavy-set mares feeding contentedly along the creek. "There must be money in wolves," she remarked evenly.
"There is. At least, I made good money hunting them." The smile was hiding behind Ward"s lips again and threatening to come boldly to the surface. "They haven"t bothered you any, I hope?"
"No," said Billy Louise, "they haven"t. I guess they must be all up your way."
For the life of him Ward could not tell to a certainty whether there was sarcasm in her tone or whether she spoke in perfect innocence. The shrewdest of us deceive ourselves sometimes. Ward might have known he could not fool Billy Louise, who had careworn experience of the cost of ranch improvements and could figure almost the exact number of wolf-bounties it would take to pay for what he had put into his claim.
Still, he was right in thinking she would not quiz him beyond a certain point. She seemed to have reached that point quite suddenly, for she did not say another word about Ward"s affairs.
"What all"s been happening in the world, anyway?" he asked, when they had exhausted some very trivial subjects. "Your world, I mean.
Anything new or startling taken place?"
"Not a thing. Marthy was down last week and spent the day with us. I never saw anybody change as much as she has. She looks almost neat, these days. And she can"t talk about anything but Charlie and how well he"s doing. She lets him do most of the managing, I think. And he had some money left to him, this spring, and has put it into cattle. He bought quite a lot of mixed stock from Seabeck and some from Winters and Nelson, Marthy says. I pa.s.sed some of his cattle coming up."
"Going to have a rival in the business, am I?" Ward laughed. "I was figuring on being the only thriving young cattle-king in this neck of the woods, myself."
"Well, Charlie"s in a fair way to beat you to it. I wish," sighed Billy Louise, "some kind person would leave me a bunch of money. Don"t you? Cattle are coming up a little all the time. I"d like to own a lot more than I do."
"Well, we--" Ward stopped and reconsidered. "If wolfing continues to pay like it has done," he said, with a twitch of the lips, "I intend to stick my little Y6 monogram on a few more cowhides before snow flies, William. And when you"ve had enough of this friend business--"
"Oh, by that time we"ll all be rich!" Billy Louise declared lightly, and for a wonder Ward was wise enough to let that close the subject.
"We"re getting neighbors down below, too," she observed later. "I didn"t tell you that. Down the river a few miles. The country is settling up all the time," she sighed. "Pretty soon there won"t be any more wilderness left. I like it up where you"ve located. That will stay wild forever, won"t it? They can"t plant spuds on those hills, anyway.
"And--did you hear, Ward? Seabeck and some of the others have been losing stock, they say. You know Marthy lost four calves last fall, by some means. Charlie Fox was terribly worried about it, though it was his own fault, and--well, I thought at the time someone had taken them, and I think so still. And just the other day one of Seabeck"s men stopped at the ranch, and he told me they"re shy some cows and calves.
They can"t imagine what went with them, and they"re lying low and not saying anything much about it. You haven"t heard or seen anything, have you, Ward?"
"I"ve stuck so close to the hills I haven"t heard or seen anything,"
Ward affirmed. "It"s amazing, the way the days slip by when a fellow"s busy all the time. Except for two trips out the other way, to Hardup, I haven"t been three miles from my claim all spring."
"Hardup! That"s where the bank was robbed, a few weeks ago, isn"t it?
The stage-driver told me about it."