Part 9 (1/2)
As the sun sank, and the dusk began to come on, he grew a little more reckless of being recognized, and, crossing the way, continued to sentinel the gate. He was pa.s.sing it for the fourth time when Lida came out upon the porch with an older woman. She looked at the stranger curiously, but did not recognize him. She wore a hat, and was plainly about to go for a walk.
Roy knew he ought to hurry away, but he did not. On the contrary, he shamelessly met her with a solemn, husky-voiced greeting. ”h.e.l.lo, girl!
How's Uncle Dan?”
She started back in alarm, then flushed as she recognized him. ”How dare you speak to me--like that!”
In this moment, as he looked into her face, his courage began to come back to him. ”Why didn't you answer my letters?” he asked, putting her on defense.
”What business had you to write to me? I told you I would not answer.”
”No, you didn't; you only said you wouldn't _speak_ to me again.”
”Well, you knew what I meant,” she replied, with less asperity.
Someway these slight concessions brought back his audacity, his power of defense. ”You bet I did; but what difference does that make to a sick man? Oh, I've had a time! I'm no use to the world since you left. I told you the truth--you're my sun, moon, and stars, and I've come down to say it just once more before I pull out for Alaska. I'm going to quit the state. The whole valley is on to my case of loco, and I'm due at the north pole. I've come to say good-by. Here's where I take my congee.”
She read something desperate in the tone of his voice. ”What do you mean? You aren't really leaving?”
”That's what. Here's where I break camp. I can't go on this way. I've got the worst fever anybody ever had, I reckon. I can't eat or sleep or work, just on account of studying about you. You've got me goin' in a circle, and if you don't say you forgive me--it's me to the bone-yard, and that's no joke, you'll find.”
She tried to laugh, but something in his worn face, intense eyes, and twitching lips made her breathing very difficult. ”You mustn't talk like that. It's just as foolish as can be.”
”Well, that don't help me a little bit. You no business to come into my life and tear things up the way you did. I was all right till you came.
I liked myself and my neighbors bully; now nothing interests me--but just you--and your opinion of me. You think I was a cowardly coyote putting up that job on your uncle the way I did. Well, I admit it; but I've been aching to tell you I've turned into another kind of farmer since then. You've educated me. Seems like I was a kid; but I've grown up into a man all of a sudden, and I'm startin' on a new line of action.
I'm not asking much to-day, just a nice, easy word. It would be a heap of comfort to have you shake hands and say you're willing to let the past go. Now, that ain't much to you, but it's a whole lot to me. Girl, you've got to be good to me this time.”
She was staring straight ahead of her with breath quickened by the sincere pa.s.sion in his quivering voice. The manly repentance which burdened his soul reached her heart. After all, it was true: he had been only a reckless, thoughtless boy as he planned that raid on her uncle, and he had been so kind and helpful afterward--and so merry! It was pitiful to see how changed he was, how repentant and sorrowful.
She turned quickly, and with a shy, teary smile thrust her hand toward him. ”All right. Let's forget it.” Then as he hungrily, impulsively sought to draw her nearer, she laughingly pushed him away. ”I don't mean--so much as you think.” But the light of forgiveness and something sweeter was in her face as she added: ”Won't you come in a minute and see mother and father--and Uncle Dan?”
”I'm _wild_ to see Uncle Dan,” he replied with comical inflection, as he followed her slowly up the path.
THE REMITTANCE MAN
_--wayward son from across the seas--is gone. Roused to manhood by his country's call, he has joined the ranks of those who fight to save the sh.o.r.es of his ancestral isle._
III
THE REMITTANCE MAN
I
The Kettle Hole Ranch house faces a wide, treeless valley and is backed by an equally bare hill. To the west the purple peaks of the Rampart range are visible. It is a group of ramshackle and dispersed cabins--not Western enough to be picturesque, and so far from being Eastern as to lack cleanliness or even comfort, and the young Englishman who rode over the hill one sunset was bitterly disappointed in the ”whole plant.”
”I shall stay here but one night,” said he, as he entered the untidy house.