Half an hour later there was a knock at the door.
CHAPTER XVII
After a moment of indecision, during which Dolly, rosy with excitement, was hurriedly rearranging her disordered apparel, Charles-Norton, picking up the lamp, strode to the door and opened it. His lips were unable to hold a short exclamation of surprise. For, framed in the door-way, here stood the mysterious stranger whom twice he had caught watching him in the meadow.
He stood there, very tall, soft hat in hand, his white hair and cavalier mustachios shining softly in the rays of the lamp, the fringes of his buckskin garments all aglitter with the cold; above his right shoulder there peered affectionately the white face of his horse, the vague loom of whom could be divined behind in the night. He placed his right foot upon the lintel, and to the movement his long spur tinkled in a single silver note. "May I come in?" he asked gravely.
"Why, yes; why, yes," exclaimed Charles-Norton, recovering from his momentary petrifaction; "come in, make yourself at home, have a chair, have a seat!"
"Back!" said the man, over his shoulder, and to the command the inquisitive nose of the white horse receded in the darkness. The man shut the door, behind which, immediately, a philosophical munching of bit began to sound. He walked across the room with a low bow which caused the wide brim of his hat to sweep the floor; and to Charles-Norton"s invitation sat himself on the bench by the fireplace. Dolly perched herself on the side of her bunk, Charles-Norton on his. They formed thus a triangle, of which the stranger was the apex. Dolly"s face was flushed, her eyes were bright, but she kept them carefully averted from the gleaming visitor. Charles-Norton, on the contrary, stared at him frankly.
A reminiscence was coming slowly, like a light, into his brain.
"I"ve seen you before," he said. "Twice I"ve seen you with your horse, here, among the rocks."
"Did you see me?" said the man, with a smile.
"I couldn"t place you then. But now I know. I know who you are. You"re Bison Billiam, aren"t you; Bison Billiam, the great scout."
"So I am popularly known," said the man, with a bow.
"I remember you. It"s ten, twelve years ago. You came out of a lot of cardboard scenery at the end of the hall, hunting buffaloes. The calcium light was on you, and you looked like this----"
Here Charles-Norton placed his right hand above his eyes in most approved scouting style, and peered to right and left. "Humph," said Bison Billiam, seemingly not altogether delighted with this representation.
"And you saw the buffalo--three of them--father and mother and son, I guess--standing in the center of the arena. You galloped right into them, and emptied the magazine of your Winchester into them--but they wouldn"t run. They knew you too well, I suppose."
"I suppose," agreed Bison Billiam. "The buffaloes I"ve hunted in the last twenty years have known me pretty well. It was not so once," he said reminiscently; "not so, not so----"
There was a little silence at this evocation of the melancholy of gone days. The fire crackled. It was Bison Billiam who spoke first. "I"ve been watching you fly," he said.
"Yes?" exclaimed Charles-Norton, flushing with pleasure and doubt.
"I have a permanent show in New York now," went on Bison Billiam.
"Yes?" said Charles-Norton.
"I want you to fly there," said Bison Billiam.
"Yes?" said Charles-Norton.
"I"ll give you four hundred a week."
Charles-Norton fell backward into his bunk, his legs swaying perpendicularly in the air like two derricks gone amuck. From the depths of his involuntary position he heard the silvery pealing of Dolly"s laughter. When he rose again though, Dolly had ceased laughing, and Bison Billiam"s face had a gravity which somehow vaguely impressed Charles-Norton as without solidity, like fresh varnish. The two looked as though they had been gazing at each other, but their eyes now were carefully averted.
"I didn"t understand," said Charles-Norton, with dignity, and surrept.i.tiously took a firm hold of the edge of the bunk.
"The matter is simply this," said Bison Billiam. "I have a permanent Wild West show in New York. I want a new feature for it. You are it. I"ll give you three hundred a----"
"Four hundred; you said four hundred!" exclaimed Dolly.
He turned to her with a bow which held homage. "Four hundred," he corrected.
"What will I have to do?" asked Charles-Norton, still somewhat dazed.
"Just fly. Fly every night, and at the matinees, Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days. The police will stand for it, I think--except on Sundays. But we"ll settle the details later. Meanwhile, here"s the contract." He fumbled in the inside of his buckskin jacket and drew out a typewritten doc.u.ment.
Charles-Norton stood long over the contract, spread out on the table. He pretended to read it, but was too agitated to do so. The little purple characters danced in the glow of the lamp. Upon his right shoulder he could feel Dolly"s chin; it rested there tenderly, with wistfulness, in prayer. Mixed with his excitement was a vague sadness, a sadness, somehow, as though he were saying farewell to someone. But he had already gone through the crisis; to Dolly"s heart-rending cry upon the dietary inadequacy of pine-nuts, he had yielded his whole being in supreme sacrifice. An exultation possessed him at the thought, a madness of self-gift. He straightened to his full height; "I"ll sign!" he cried with ringing accent.
He felt Dolly turn about him; she laid her head upon his breast. "Sh-sh, sh-sh," he whispered, patting her; "it"s all right, Dolly." He raised his head once more. "I"ll sign!" he declared again loudly.
"Well, I should say so," murmured Bison Billiam, a bit amazed at all this ceremony. Out of the holster which hung on his belt, he drew a fountain-pen, which lay snugly by the silver-mounted revolver. And Charles-Norton, his left arm about Dolly, with his right hand signed firmly the contract.
"I"ll be back in the morning," said Bison Billiam as he mounted his horse. "You"ll give me an exhibition, and we"ll settle on your stunt and on the size of your machine--your----"
But his last word flew away with him in the night. Charles-Norton closed the door. There was a little silence. "What did he mean?" asked Charles-Norton; "what did he mean by the size, the size of----"
"Oh, I don"t know," said Dolly. "Goosie, you are a dear; a darling, Goosie. Goosie----"
"That"s all right, little girl," said Charles-Norton with large magnanimity; "glad to do it for you." And then, nudging Dolly with his elbow, "four hundred a week, Dolly; four hundred! Gee!" he cried.
The practical side of Charles-Norton seemed at last awakened; he danced around the table in glee. But Dolly, singularly, did not join in.
The next morning, bright and early, Dolly and Charles-Norton heard a haloo outside and, emerging, found Bison Billiam erect upon his motionless horse in the center of the snow-covered meadow. "You"ve had breakfast?" he asked pleasantly.
"Well--yes," said Dolly; "just got through," said the little liar (there wasn"t anything within the cabin to breakfast upon).
"We"ll begin right away, then," said Bison Billiam. "We leave at noon."
He dismounted, and Dolly and he seated themselves side by side, with backs against the cabin, while Charles-Norton gave them an exhibition.
He winged off first directly for the crest gleaming high in the distance, making his line straight and swift; then returned in a perfect curve that spanned the distance like a rainbow. Remaining above the meadow, now, he drew all his fantasies against the sky and finally, rising high till he was a mere dot in the heavens, he shot down like a white thunderbolt and landed at their feet in snowy explosion of extended wings.
He found Bison Billiam and Dolly conferring earnestly. "Two feet, I think," Bison Billiam said. Dolly ran into the cabin and returned with a pair of glittering scissors.
"What are you going to do?" asked Charles-Norton, suddenly cold and distrustful.
"Cut off two feet," said Dolly, laughingly. "Mr. Billiam says to cut off two feet."
"Off my wings?" yelped Charles-Norton; "off my wings?"
Dolly turned her eyes to Bison Billiam in doubt, in appeal. "It"s in the contract, young man," said Bison Billiam. "Haven"t you read the contract?"
he said, drawing the doc.u.ment from his jacket.
"No, I haven"t," said Charles-Norton, shortly. "Let me see it."