Part 10 (1/2)

”But you wouldn't be afraid of a man, Will!”

”Well, no,” admitted he. ”I've never been troubled much that way.

You see, everybody has a different fear to throw a crimp in them.

Mine's rattlesnakes and these little bugs with forty million pairs of legs. I pa.s.s right out when I see one of them things. They give me a feeling as if my stummick had melted.”

”Weren't the Indians terrible out there, too?” asked Miss Mattie.

”I'm sure they must have been.”

”Oh, they ain't bad people if you use 'em right,” said Red. ”Not that I like 'em any better on the ground, than in it,” he added hastily, fearful of betraying the sentiment of his country, ”but I never had but one real argument, man to man. Black Wolf and I come together over a matter of who owned my cayuse, and from words we backed off and got to shooting. He raked me from knee to hip, as I was kneeling down, doing the best I could by him, and wasting ammunition because I was in a hurry. Still, I did bust his ankle.

In the middle of the fuss a stray shot hit the cayuse in the head and he croaked without a remark, so there we were, a pair of fools miles from home with nothing left to quarrel about! You could have fried an egg on a rock that day, and it always makes you thirsty to get shot anyways serious, thinking of which I hollered peace to old Black Wolf and told him I'd pull straws with him to see who took my canteen down to the creek and got some fresh water. He was agreeable and we hunched up to each other. It ain't to my credit to say it, but I was worse hurt than that Injun, so I worked him.

He got the short straw, and had to crawl a mile through cactus, while I sat comfortable on the cause of the disagreement and yelled to him that he looked like a badger, and other things that an Injun wouldn't feel was a compliment.” Red leaned back and roared. ”I can see him now putting his hands down so careful, and turning back every once in awhile to cuss me. Turned out that it was his cayuse, too. Feller that sold it to me had stole it from him. I oughtn't to laugh over it, but I can't help but snicker when I think how I did that Injun.”

Generally speaking, Miss Mattie had a lively sense of humour, but the joke of this was lost on her. Her education had been that getting shot was far from funny.

”Why, I should have thought you would have died, Will!”

”What! For a little crack in the leg!” cried Red, with some impatience. ”You people must quit easy in this country. Die nothin'. One of our boys came along and took us to camp, and we was up and doing again in no time. 'Course, Black Wolf has a game leg for good, but the worst that's stuck to me is a yank or two of rheumatism in the rainy season. I paid Wolf for his cayuse,” he finished shamefacedly. ”I had the laugh on him anyhow.”

Miss Mattie told him she thought that was n.o.ble of him, which tribute Red took as medicine, and s.h.i.+fted the subject with speed, to practical affairs. He asked Miss Mattie how much money she had and how she managed to make out. Now, it was one of the canons of good manners in Fairfield not to speak of material matters--perhaps because there was so little material matter in the community, but Miss Mattie, doomed to a thousand irksome petty economies, had often longed for a sympathetic ear, to pour into it a good honest complaint of hating to do this and that. She could not exactly go this far with Cousin Will, but she could say that it was pretty hard to get along, and give some details. She felt that she knew him so very well, in those few hours! Red heard with nods of a.s.sent. He had scented the conditions at once.

”It ain't any fun, skidding on the thin ice,” said he, when they had concluded the talk. ”I've had to count the beans I put in the pot, and it made me hate arithmetic worse than when I went over yonder to school. Well, them days have gone by for you, Mattie.”

He reached down and pulling out a green roll, slapped it on the centre table. ”Blow that in, and limber up, and remember that there's more behind it.”

Miss Mattie's pride rose at a leap.

”Will!” she said, ”I hope you don't think I've told you this to get money from you?”

He leaned forward, put his hand on her shoulder and held her eyes with a sudden access of sternness and authority.

”And I hope, Mattie,” said he, ”that you don't think that I think anything of the kind?”

The cousins stared into each other's eyes for a full minute. Then Miss Mattie spoke. ”No, Will,” said she, ”I don't believe you do.”

”I shouldn't think I did,” retorted Red. ”What in thunder would I do with all that money? Why, good Lord, girl, I could paper your house with ten-dollar bills--now you try to fly them green kites, like I tell you.”

Miss Mattie broke down, the not fully realised strain of fifteen years had made itself felt when the cord snapped. ”I don't know how to thank you. I don't know what to say. Oh, William! it seems too good to be true.”

”What you crying about, Mattie?” said he in sore distress. ”Now hold on! Listen to me a minute! There's something I want you to do for me.”

”What is it?” she asked, drying her eyes. ”For dinner to-morrow,”

he replied, ”let's have a roast of beef about that size,”

indicating a wash-tub.

The diversion was complete.

”Why, Will! What would we ever do with it?” said she.

”Do with it? Why, eat it!”