Part 33 (1/2)
”I said I was busy,” she cried deliberately. ”Surely that should be sufficient.”
But the man had no intention of accepting his dismissal.
”It jest depends wot a feller's come around for,” he said, no whit disconcerted. ”Mebbe you won't find you're busy when you heard what I got to say.” He laughed immoderately. Beasley's whisky was at work, and he had no fear for the purpose in hand.
Suddenly he dived a hand into his hip-pocket and drew out the bills the saloon-keeper had paid him.
”Look at them,” he cried in a voice that was high-pitched with elation. ”Ther's dollars an' dollars ther', but 'tain't nuthin' to wot's to come. Say, I got another cache o' gold waitin' back ther' at my shack, but I ain't handin' it to Beasley,” he went on cunningly.
”Oh, no, not me! I'm a business guy, I am. I hold that up, an' all the rest I git from my patch, an' I'm goin' to cash it in Leeson b.u.t.te, at the bank, fer a proper exchange. See? Oh, I ain't no sucker, I ain't.
An' a feller needs a heap o' dollars, treatin' his gal right.”
Joan hardly knew how to deal with such a situation. Besides, the now obvious condition of the man alarmed her. However, he gave her no opportunity to reply. For, delighted with his own talk, he went on promptly--
”Now I tho't a whole heap since I got this wad. A wad like this takes you thinkin', that is, ef you ain't a low-down rattle-brain like Pete, or a psalm-smitin' son-of-a-moose like that feller, Buck. Course they ain't got no sort o' savvee, anyways, so they don't count nuthin'. But wi' a feller like me things is diff'rent. Now, this is what I got fixed. Y' see you can't have no sort of a time in this yer camp, but it's diff'rent in Leeson b.u.t.te. Guess we'll get a buggy from the camp an' drive into Leeson. Ther's dance halls ther', an' they run a decent faro joint at a place I know. An' they sell elegant rye, too. Wal, we'll git that buggy, an' git fixed up reg'lar in Leeson, an' have a bully time, an' git right back to here an' run this yer farm between us. How's that?”
”I--I don't think I understand.”
Joan's alarm grew. This man was deliberately proposing to marry her.
Supported by the nerve his half-drunken condition inspired, his senses were so inflamed that he took the whole matter for granted. She looked into his sensual young face, the hard eyes, and at the loose lips that surrounded his unclean teeth, and something like panic seized her.
However, she knew she must not show her fear.
But he was waiting. And in reality her reply came without any hesitation. She shook her head.
”You've made a mistake,” she said decidedly but gently. ”I have no intention of marrying anybody.” Then, taking her courage in both hands, she permitted something of her dislike and contempt to creep into her manner. ”It seems to me you take a great deal too much for granted. You come here when you think you will, wholly uninvited, and, from the first, you hint broadly that you regard me as--as the person you intend to marry. That is presumption, to put it mildly, and I have no use for people who--presume.”
She moved as though to return to the house. But Ike, all his confidence suddenly merged into a volcanic heat, reached out a hand to detain her. His hand came into rough contact with the soft flesh of her shoulder, and, shaking it off, she faced him with flaming eyes.
”Don't dare to do that again,” she cried, with bosom heaving. ”Go, leave this farm instantly. Remember you are trespa.s.sing here!”
Her anger had outweighed all her alarm, even, perhaps, all discretion.
For the man was in no mood to accept his dismissal easily.
”So that's it, is it?” he cried with a sudden hoa.r.s.eness. ”Oho, my lady! We're putting on airs,” he sneered. ”Not good enough, eh?
Presuming, am I? An' who in blazes are you that you can't be touched?
Seems to me a decent honest citizen's jest as good fer you as fer any other gal, an' my dollars are clean. What in thunder's amiss?” Then his heat lessened, and his manner became more ingratiating. ”See here, Golden,” he went on persuasively, ”you don't mean that, sure! Wot's the matter with me? I ain't weak-kneed, nor nuthin'. I ain't scared o'
no man. I'd sc.r.a.p the devil ef you ast me. An' say, just think wot we ken do with the dollars. You'd make a real upstander in a swell house, with folks waitin' around on you, an' di'monds an' things. Say, I'm jest bustin' to make good like that. You can't jest think how much gold ther' is in my patch--an' you brought it along with you. You give it to me--your luck.”
There was something almost pathetic in his pleading, and for a brief moment a shade of sympathy softened the girl.
”Please don't persist, Ike,” she said almost gently. ”Still, I can never marry you. It's--it's--absurd,” she added, with a touch of impatience she could not wholly keep back.
But that touch of impatience suddenly set fire again to the man's underlying intolerance of being thwarted.
”Absurd, is it?” He laughed with a curious viciousness which once more disturbed the girl. ”Absurd fer you to marry me,” he cried harshly.
”Absurd fer you, cos I ain't got no smarmy eddication, cos I ain't dressed in swaller tails an' kids, same as city folks. Oh, I know!
You're a leddy--a city-raised leddy, an' I--I'm jest a prairie hog.
That's it. You ain't got no use fer me. You jest come along right here an' laff, an' laff at us folks. Oh, you needn't to say you hav'n't!”
as she raised a protesting hand. ”Think I'm blind, think I'm deaf. Me!
Say, you shown it right along jest so plain ther' wer'n't no need to tell it in langwidge.” He broke off for a moment as though his anger had robbed him of further speech, and Joan watched the growing purpose in his hot eyes. Her own face was the color of marble. She was inwardly trembling, but she stood her ground with eyes stonily cold.
She made no attempt to speak now, or defend herself against his accusations. She knew it would be useless. Only she longed in her mind for the presence of Buck to protect her from the insult she felt to be coming. Nor was she mistaken.