Part 6 (1/2)

”So he makes your trail all uphill?”

”By simply refusing to advise me. My father won't talk business. Lew Hervey won't. I'm trying to run a dollar business with a cent's worth of knowledge and no experience. I can't discharge Hervey; his service has been too long and faithful. But I want to have someone up there who will go into training to take Hervey's place eventually. Someone who knows cattle and can tell me what to do now and then. Mr. Perris, do you know the cow business?”

Some of his interest faded.

”Most folks raised in these parts do,” he answered obliquely. ”I should think you could get a dozen anywhere.”

She explained eagerly: ”It's not so simple. You see, Lew Hervey is rather a rough character. In the old days I think he was quite a fighter. I guess he still is. And he's gathered a lot of fighting men for cowpunchers on the ranch. When he sees me bring in an understudy for his part, so to speak, I'm afraid he might make trouble unless he was convinced it would be safer to keep his hands off the new man.”

The gloom of Perris returned. He was still politely attentive, but his head turned, and the eager eyes found something of interest across the street. She knew her grip on him was failing and she struggled to regain it. Here was her man, she knew. Here was one who would ride the fiercest outlaw horse on the ranch; wear out the toughest cowboy; play with them to weariness when they wanted to play, fight with them to exhaustion when they wanted to fight, and as her right-hand man, advise her for the best.

”As for terms, the right man can make them for himself,” she concluded, hopelessly: ”Mr. Perris, I think you could be the man for the place.

What do you say to trying?”

He paused, diffidently, and she knew that in the pause he was hunting for polite terms of refusal.

”I'll tell you how it is. You're mighty kind to make the offer. You haven't seen much of me and that little bit has been--pretty rough.” He laughed away his embarra.s.sment. ”So I appreciate your confidence--a lot.

But I'm afraid that I'd be a tolerable lot like Hervey.” He hurried on lest she should take offense. ”You see, I don't like orders.”

”Of course if it were a man who made the offer to you--” she began angrily.

He raised his hand. There were little touches of formal courtesy in him so contrasted with what she had seen of him in action, so at variance with the childishly gaudy clothes he wore, that it put Marianne completely at sea.

”It's just that I like my own way. I've been a rolling stone all my life. About the only moss I've gathered is what you see.” He touched the dust-tarnished gold braid on his sombrero and his twinkling eyes invited her to mirth. But Marianne was sternly silent. She knew that her color was gone and that her beauty had in large part gone with it; a reflection that did not at all help her mood or her looks. ”I get my fun out of playing a free hand,” he was concluding. ”I don't like partners.

Not that I'm proud of it, but so you can see where I stand. If I don't like a bunkie you can figure why I don't want a boss.”

She nodded stiffly, and at the unamiable gesture she saw him shrug his shoulders very slightly, his eyes wandered again as though he were seeking for a means to end the interview.

Marianne rose.

”I see your viewpoint, Mr. Perris,” she said coldly. ”And I'm sorry you can't accept my offer.”

He came to his feet at the same moment, but still he lingered a moment, turning his hat thoughtfully so that she hoped, for an instant, that he was on the verge of reconsidering. After all, she should have used more persuasion; she was firmly convinced that at heart men are very close to children. Then his head went up and he shook away the mood which had come over him.

”Some time I'll come to it,” he admitted. ”But not yet a while. I take it mighty kind of you to have thought I could fill the bill and--I'm wis.h.i.+ng you all sorts of luck, Miss Jordan.”

”Thank you,” said Marianne, and hated herself for her unbending stiffness.

At the door he turned again.

”I sure hope it's easy for you to forget songs,” he said.

”Songs?” echoed Marianne, and then turned crimson with the memory.

”'You see,” explained Red Jim Perris, ”it's a bad habit I've picked up-- of doing the first fool thing that comes into my head. Good-bye, Miss Jordan.”

He was gone.

She felt, confusedly, that there were many thing? she should have said and at the same time there was a strange surety that sometime she would see him again and say them. She walked absently to the window which opened on the vacant lot to the rear of the hotel.