say so,” said Paul, shutting the door.
“Don’t get sore, then, Paul,” returned the cowboy earnestly. “We’re bucked into somethin’ oot heah an’ it’ll take us both to beat it. . . . I seen the little lady look at you with them strange eyes an’ I seen their effect on you when you come in jest now.”
“Okay. They are strange, and they sure nailed me. . . . But I don’t know how,” returned Paul with a laugh.
Kintell made a significant gesture with his brown hand toward the cabin outside the window.
“Peach?” he drawled.
“Who? The little lady that looked at me. . . ? Yes, come to think of it, she is.”
“Pard, I reckon you an’ me are a couple of doomed hombres,” went on Kintell, lowering his voice, and wagging his hawklike head.
“Doomed!” echoed Paul. “I don’t get you, Wess.” But he did understand only too well.
“I shore was stumped when I seen thet girl,” rejoined the cowboy, ignoring the meaning of his employer’s statement. “She come up to me the other day with a list of things she wanted me to fetch from Wagontongue. An’ while she was aboot it she hinted thet I should block the cattle deal, but not to give her away to Belmont. I was plumb stumped.”
“Well!” exclaimed Paul, astounded. “But just now she said she was glad it looked as if I meant to stay awhile.”
“Correct. I heahed her. Wal, so long as I didn’t block the deal she could be glad you’d come, couldn’t she?”
Paul nodded thoughtfully. No doubt Kintell’s reaction to this place and situation was much like his own.
“Paul, I never looked into such strange eyes in all my life. Beautiful, shore! But it wasn’t thet so much. They hurt me like hell.”
“They hurt me too,” returned Paul.
“Thet girl is sufferin’ wuss than heartbreak. Jest a kid, for all her full-breastedness. But thet’s the baby. I feel so damn sorry for her thet I’m sore at myself. What am I so sorry aboot? Becawse she’s a kid, married to thet big-haided ham. . . ? Nope, it’s becawse of them eyes. . . ! Queer situation, this, an’ don’t you overlook it, Manning. This Belmont is deep, slick, hard as nails, crooked as a rail fence. I saw him chuck the Indian girl—the pretty one—under the chin. She hissed like a viper. I cain’t figger oot who this ‘Sister’ dame is. Not his real sister, believe me. An’ she hates the girl like pizen. I got thet pronto.”
“Wess, what I got is that the girl hates Belmont worse than poison,” whispered Paul.
“Why wouldn’t she? Natural. She’s shore not his class, nor the ‘Sister’ dame’s either. . . . An’ this is yore deal, boss! What have we rode into?”
“I don’t know. But I’m glad,” returned Paul with strong feeling. “If that poor kid is glad—then so am I.”
“Yeah?” drawled Wess, with an eloquent glance. “Pard, you shore had a sweet time with the last female you got mixed up with—an’ she wasn’t even married.”
“That’s not what I mean—and you know it!” flashed Paul angrily. “Do you want to lie down on me and run out of Bitter Seeps?”
“Say, bozo, you don’t savvy yore man,” declared the cowboy scornfully.
“All right. Let’s lay off the heavy stuff awhile. . . . Where are you going to hang that six-gallon bonnet?”
“I’ve a tent ootside in the cedars. It has a board floor. Okay till fall.”
“Get busy here, then. . . . Let me see. It’ll take some job to make this room habitable. Wess, your boss is going to be a luxurious cuss.”
“Like hell he is! Did you happen to observe, pard, thet yore room is sometimes under water?”
“Belmont said a little water ran in during summer floods. But he’d remedy that.”
“Ah-huh. We won’t risk it. I’ll make some low stands to keep yore bags off the floor. . . . You’ll want a long box to store firewood in. These nights will be cold clear into July. An’ what else?”
“Shelves to go here. A table to set here under the window.”
“So you can see oot, huh?” drawled Wess dryly.
“No. So I can see to write, you blockhead,” retorted Paul. “I must get a lamp with a good shade—probably we’ll have to send in for that. Borrow or buy some new blankets for the floor. I want a mirror I can see myself in. Look at yourself once in this glass.”
“Holy mavericks! Once is plenty. No girl would leave home for a mug like thet.”
“Haven’t you got girls on the brain?”
“Shore. It’s a swell way to be. . . . A few looks in this glass, though, would rid me of all my vanity. Reminds me of them funny mirrors at Coney Island. I was East onct, traveling with the Hundred an’ One Ranch ootfit. Some trip.”
Paul scarcely heard the loquacious cowboy. At the moment he was fingering the red tags on two new, heavy suitcases. He had forgotten these. They had been packed in Kansas City nearly five months before and had never been opened. Paul lifted them carefully onto his bed.
“Shore I wondered what was in them two bags,” observed Wess. “You handle them kinda funny. Eggs, china or dynamite?”
“Dynamite, pard,” replied Paul fiercely.
“Quit yore kiddin’.”
“Wess, I’ve forgotten all I put in those bags. But believe me, there’s the damndest lot of truck to dazzle a woman’s eyes! Cost far into four figures! Now what on earth will I do with it all?”
“Why, hell, pard,” drawled Wess in his soft voice, “thet’s easy. Keep ’em for another girl.”
“Wess, you have the most wonderful philosophy. I’ve noticed it before in such regard. . . . Your theory, then, is that in case of death or loss—or say, treachery—the thing to do is to get another?”
“Cer-tin-lee an’ pronto!” declared Wess vociferously.
Paul swore at the cowboy and drove him out to fetch lumber and tools. Kintell had touched rudely upon tender spots. Yet Paul found that he could laugh. The Texan was droll, unique, and altogether a remarkable character. Paul had just begun to appreciate him, and to realize that he was singularly helpful. Paul sat down on the bed and with a hesitating hand touched the red tag on the nearest of the two grips. A melancholy and detached pathos attended the memory of the passionate, boyish zeal and rapture that had been wasted in the loving selection and purchase of the gifts in that bag. He could think of them now, almost without bitterness. Yes, something had happened. The time might even come when he could look back at a searingly bitter experience of life with eyes of thoughtful tolerance.
Kintell turned out to be a first-rate carpenter and handy man. By midafternoon the racks were finished, the shelves were up, the long heavy woodbox
