Part 6 (2/2)

”Mary!” she corrected.

”Mary,” grinned Sanderson.

Mary turned to the stove. ”You go out and find a chair on the porch,”

she directed, over her shoulder. ”I'll have supper ready in a jiffy.

It's too hot for you in here.”

Sanderson obeyed. From the deeply crimson hue of his face it was apparent that the heat of the kitchen had affected him. That, at least, must have been the reason Mary had ordered him away. His face _felt_ hot.

He found a chair on the porch, and he sank into it, feeling like a criminal. There was a certain humor in the situation. Sanderson felt it, but could not appreciate it, and he sat, hunched forward, staring glumly into the dusk that had settled over the basin.

He had been sitting on the porch for some minutes when he became aware of a figure near him, and he turned slowly to see the little, anemic man standing not far away.

”Cooling off?” suggested the little man.

Sanderson straightened. ”How in h.e.l.l do you know I'm hot?” he demanded gruffly.

The little man grinned. ”There's signs. Your face looks like you'd had it in an oven. Now, don't lose your temper; I didn't mean to offend you.”

The little man's voice was placative; his manner gravely ingratiating.

Yet Sanderson divined that the other was inwardly laughing at him.

Why? Sanderson did not know. He was aware that he must seem awkward in the role of brother, and he suspected that the little man had noticed it; possibly the little man was one of those keen-witted and humorously inclined persons who find amus.e.m.e.nt in the incongruous.

There was certainly humor in the man's face, in the glint of his eyes, and in the curve of his lips. His face was seamed and wrinkled; his ears were big and prominent, the tips bending outward under the brim of a felt hat that was too large for him; his mouth was large, and Sanderson's impression of it was that it could not be closed far enough to conceal all the teeth, but that the lips were continually trying to stretch far enough to accomplish the feat.

Sanderson was certain it was that continual effort of the muscles of the lips that gave to his mouth its humorous expression.

The man was not over five feet and two or three inches tall, and crowning his slender body was a head that was entirely out of proportion to the rest of him. He was not repulsive-looking, however, and a glance at his eyes convinced Sanderson that anything Providence had taken from his body had been added, by way of compensation, to his intellect.

Sanderson found it hard to resent the man's seeming impertinence. He grinned reluctantly at him.

”Did I tell you you'd hurt my feelin's?” he inquired. ”What oven do you think I had my head in?”

”I didn't say,” grinned the little man. ”There's places that are hotter than an oven. And if a man has never been a wolf with women, it might be expected that he'd feel sort of warm to be kissed and fussed over by a sister he's not seen for a good many years. He'd seem like a stranger to her--almost.”

Sanderson's eyes glowed with a new interest in the little man.

”How did you know I wasn't a wolf with women?”

”Shucks,” said the other; ”you're bashful, and you don't run to vanity.

Any fool could see that.”

”I ain't been introduced to you--regular,” said Sanderson, ”but you seem to be a heap long on common sense, an' I'd be glad to know you.

What did you say your name was?”

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