Part 11 (2/2)

So with this a.s.surance of good-will we picketed our horses close by the circle of wagons--where we could get to them quickly should any of Lessard's troop happen into the camp--and prepared to devour the supper Horner's good-natured cook bestirred himself to make ready. As we filled our plates and squatted under the canvas that sheltered the cook's Dutch-oven layout, a man under the hind end of the chuck-wagon propped himself on elbow and shouted greeting to us. In the semi-dark I couldn't see his face, but I recognized the voice. It was our friend of the whisky-keg episode, Piegan Smith.

”h.e.l.lo, thar, fellers!” he bellowed (Piegan always spoke to a man as if he were a hundred yards away). ”Say, Flood, yuh ain't been t' Benton an'

back already, have yuh?”

”Faith, no,” I owned, between mouthfuls, ”and it's hard telling when I will get there. How come you to be pacing along this trail, Piegan? Gone to freighting in your old age?”

”Not what yuh could notice, I ain't,” he snorted. ”Catch _me_ whackin'

bulls for a livin'! Naw, I sold my outfit to a goggle-eyed pilgrim that has an idea buffalo hides is prime all summer. So I'm headed for Benton to see if I kain't stir up a little excitement now an' then, to pa.s.s away the time till the fall buffalo-run begins.”

”If you're looking for excitement, Piegan,” MacRae put in dryly, ”you'd better come along with us. We'll introduce you to more different brands of it in the next few days than Benton could furnish in six months.”

”Maybe,” Piegan laughed. ”But not the brand I'm a-thirstin' for.”

Mac was on the point of replying when there came a most unexpected interruption. I looked up at sound of a startled exclamation, and beheld the round African physog of Lyn Rowan's colored mammy. But she had no eyes for me; she stood like a black statue just within the firelight, a tin bucket in one hand, staring over my head at MacRae.

”Lawd a-me!” she gulped out. ”Ef Ah ain't sho'ly laid mah ol' eyes on Ma.r.s.e Go'don. Is dat sho' 'nuf yo', wid yo' red coat an' all?”

”It sure is, Mammy,” Mac answered. ”How does it happen you're traveling this way? I thought you were at Fort Walsh. Is Miss Lyn along?”

”She suttinly am,” Mammy Thomas emphatically a.s.serted. ”Yo' doan catch dis chile a-mosyin' obeh dese yeah plains by huh lonesome. Since dey done brought Miss Lyn's paw in an' planted him, she say dey ain't no use foh huh to stay in dis yeah redcoat country no longer; so we all packed up an' sta'ted back foh de lan' ob de free.”

MacRae, I am sure, was no more than half through his meal. But he swallowed the coffee in his cup, and tossed his eating-implements into the cook's wash-pan.

”I'll go with you, Mammy,” he told her. ”I want to see Miss Lyn myself.”

”Jes' a minute, Ma.r.s.e Go'don,” she said. ”Ah's got to git some wa'm watah f'om dis yeah Mr. Cook.”

The cook signaled her to help herself from the kettle that bubbled over the fire, and she filled her bucket and disappeared, chattering volubly, MacRae at her heels.

I finished my supper more deliberately. There was no occasion for me to gobble my food and rush off to talk with Lyn Rowan. MacRae, I suspected, would be inclined to monopolize her for the rest of the evening. So I ate leisurely, and when done crawled under the wagon beside Piegan Smith and gave myself up to cigarettes and meditation, while over his pipe Piegan expressed a most unflattering opinion of the weather.

It was a dirty night, beyond question; one that gave color to Piegan's prophesy that Milk River would be out of its banks if the storm held till morning, and that Baker's freight-train would be stalled by mud and high water for three or four days. I was duly thankful for the shelter we had found. A tarpaulin stretched from wheel to wheel of the wagon shut out the driving rain that fled in sheets before the whooping wind.

The lightning-play was hidden behind the drifting cloud-bank, for no glint of it penetrated the gloom; but the cavernous thunder-bellow roared intermittently, and a fury of rain drove slantwise against sodden earth and creaking wagon-tops.

If the next two hours were as slow in pa.s.sing, to MacRae and Lyn, as they seemed to me, the two of them had time to dissect and discuss the hopes and fears and errors of their whole existence, and formulate a new philosophy of life. Piegan broke a long silence to remark sagely that if Mac was putting in all this time talking to that ”yaller-headed fairy,”

he was a plumb good stayer.

”They're old friends,” I told him. ”Mac knew her long ago; and all her people.”

”Well, he's in darned agreeable company,” Piegan observed. ”She's a mighty fine little woman, far's I've seen. I dunno's I'd know when t'

jar loose m'self, if I knowed her an' she didn't object t' me hangin'

around. But seein' we ain't in on the reception, we might as well get under the covers, eh? I reckon most everybody in camp's turned in.”

Piegan had a bulky roll of bedding under the wagon. Spread to its full width, it was ample for three ordinary men. We had just got out of our outside garments and were snuggling down between the blankets when Mac came slopping through the puddles that were now gathering in every depression. He crawled under the wagon, shed some of his clothing, and got into bed with us. But he didn't lie down until he had rolled a cigarette, and then instead of going to sleep he began talking to Piegan, asking what seemed to me a lot of rather trifling questions. I was nearly worn out, and their conversation was nowise interesting to me, so listening to the monotonous drone of their voices and the steady beat of falling rain, I went to sleep.

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