o’ the United States was to stand over me an’ wouldn’t let me put on nuthin’ else.”
The girl refrained from reply, but the obvious impossibility of the feat appealed to her sense of humor. However, the solution of her riddle was of prevailing interest, so she returned again to her questioning.
“Did he say how he found me?” she demanded. “Did he tell you any – any particulars of what happened to the cart, and – and the teamster?”
“No, ma’m – miss, beggin’ your pardin, – that he didn’t. I never see sech a fresh feller outside a noospaper office. An’ him the owner of this farm that was, but isn’t, as you might say. You take my word for it he’ll come to a bad end, he sure will. Wot with them wicked eyes of his, an’ that black, Dago-lookin’ hair. I never did see a feller who looked more like a scallawag than him. Makes me shiver to think of him a-carryin’ you in his two arms. Wher’ from sez I —an’ why?”
“Because I couldn’t walk, I expect,” the girl replied easily.
The farm-wife shook a fat, warning finger at her.
“Oh, ma’m – miss – that’s wot he says! You jest wait till you’ve got more experience o’ scallawags like him an’ you’ll sure know. Wot I sez is men’s that full o’ tricks wher’ females is to be deceived it ’ud take ’em a summer vacation sortin’ ’emselves out. Men is shockin’ scallawags,” she finished up, flinging the shoes pell-mell into the open trunk.
A further rescue of her property was necessary and the girl protested.
“Please don’t bother any more with those clothes,” she cried hurriedly. “I’ll see to them myself.” Then, as the woman proceeded to mop her perspiring brow with a pair of silk stockings, she sprang up and thrust a hand-towel toward her. “Use this; you’ll find it more absorbent than – er – silk.”
The old woman thanked her profusely, and made the exchange. And when the operation was completed the relieved girl returned to her seat and went on with her examination.
“What did you say his name was?”
“I didn’t say. An’ he didn’t tell me, neither. Fellers like him ain’t never ready with their names. Maybe he calls himself Moreton Kenyon. Y’ see he was the same as handed the farm over, an’ you tol’ me, back ther’ in Leeson Butte, you’d bo’t Moreton Kenyon’s farm. ‘Moreton Kenyon!’ Sort o’ high-soundin’ name for such a scallawag. I don’t never trust high-soundin’ names. They’re most like whitewash. You allus set that sort o’ stuff on hog-pens an’ sech, as you might say.”
“Perhaps he’s not as bad as you suspect,” the girl suggested kindly. “Lots of good people start by making a bad impression.”
“I don’t know what that means,” cried the other promptly. “But I do know what a scallawag is, an’ that’s him.”
It was useless to seek further information from such a source, so the girl abandoned the attempt, and dismissed the pig-headed housekeeper to her work, work which she felt she was far better suited to than such a delicate operation as the straightening out a wardrobe.
When Mrs. Ransford had taken her unwilling departure, not without several well-meaning protests, the girl bent her own energies to restoring order to her wardrobe. Nor was it an easy task. The masculine manner of the bedroom left much to be desired in those little depositories and cupboards, without which no woman can live in comfort. And during the process of disposing her belongings many mental notes were made for future alterations in the furnishings of her new abode.
It was not a bad room, however. The simplicity and cleanliness of it struck wholesomely upon her. Yes, in spite of what her lieutenant had said about him, Mr. Moreton Kenyon was certainly a man of some refinement. She had never heard that such neatness and cleanliness was the habit amongst small bachelor farmers in the outlands of the West. And this was the man who had carried her – where from?
Again she sat down in the rocker and gave herself up to the puzzlement of those hours of her unconsciousness. The last event that was clear in her mind was the struggle of the teamster to keep his horses head-on for the bank of the flooded river. She remembered the surging waters, she remembered that the bottom of the cart was awash, and that she sat with her feet lifted and resting on the side of the vehicle. She remembered that the horses were swimming before the driver’s flogging whip and blasphemous shoutings. All this was plain enough still. Then came the man’s order to herself. He warned her to get ready to jump, and she had been quick to realize the necessity. In spite of the horses’ wildest struggles the cart was being washed down-stream. Then had come his final shout. And she had jumped on the instant.
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