Part 4 (1/2)

”Keep a-making of it, Niece Ruth,” Uncle Jabez advised earnestly. ”You never can tell when you are going to want more or when your ability to make money is going to stop. I'd sell the Red Mill or give up and never grind another grist for n.o.body, if I didn't feel that perhaps by next year I should have to stop, anyway--and another year won't much matter.”

”You get so little pleasure out of life, Uncle Jabez,” Ruth once said in answer to this statement of the old man.

”Shucks! Don't you believe it. I don't know no better fun than watching the corn in the hopper or the stuns go round and round while the meal flour runs out of the spout below, warm and nice-smellin'. The millin'

business is just as pretty a business as there is in the world--when once you git used to the dust. No doubt of it.”

”I can see, Uncle Jabez, that you find it so,” said Ruth, but rather doubtfully.

”Of course it is,” said the old man stoutly. ”You get fun out of running about the country and looking at things and seeing how other folks live and work. And that's all right for you. _You_ make money out of it. But what would I get out of gadding about?”

”A broader outlook on life, Uncle Jabez.”

”I don't want no broader outlook. I don't need nothing of the kind. Nor does Alviry Boggs, though she's got to talking a dreadful lot lately about wanting to ride around in an automobile. At her age, too!”

”You should own a car, Uncle Jabez,” urged Ruth.

”Now, stop that! Stop that, Niece Ruth! I won't hear to no such foolishness. You show me how I can make money riding up and down the Lumano in a pesky motor-car, and maybe I'll do like Alviry wants me to, and buy one of the contraptions.” ”Hullo, now!” added the miller suddenly. ”Who might this be?”

Ruth turned to see one of the very motor-cars that Uncle Jabez so scorned (or pretended to) stopping before the wide door of the mill itself.

But as it was the man driving the roadster, rather than the car itself, Uncle Jabez had spoken of, Ruth gave her attention to him. He was a ruddy, tubby little man in a pin-check black and white suit, faced with silk on lapels and pockets--it really gave him a sort of minstrel-like appearance as though he should likewise have had his face corked--and he wore in a puffed maroon scarf a stone that flashed enough for half a dozen ordinary diamonds--whether it really was of the first water or not.

This man hopped out from back of the wheel of the roadster and came briskly up the graveled rise from the road to the door of the mill. He favored Ruth with a side glance and half smile that the girl of the Red Mill thought (she had seen plenty of such men) revealed his character very clearly. But he spoke to Uncle Jabez.

”I say, Pop, is this the place they call the Red Mill?”

”I calkerlate it is,” agreed the miller dryly. ”Leastways, it's the only Red Mill I ever heard tell on.”

”I reckoned I'd got to the right dump,” said the visitor cheerfully. ”I understand there's an Injun girl stopping here? Is that so?”

Uncle Jabez glanced at Ruth and got her permission to speak before he answered:

”I don't know as it's any of your business, Mister; but the Princess Wonota, of the Osage Nation, is stopping here just now. What might be your business with her?”

”So she calls herself a 'princess' does she?” returned the man, grinning again at Ruth in an offensive way. ”Well, I have managed a South Sea Island chief, a pair of Circa.s.sian twins, and a bunch of Eskimos, in my time. I guess I know how to act in the presence of Injun royalty. Trot her out.”

”Trot who out?” asked the miller calmly, but with eyes that flashed under his penthouse brows. ”Wonota ain't no horse. Did you think she was?”

”I know what she is,” returned the man promptly. ”It's what she is going to be that interests me. I'm Bilby--Horatio Bilby. Maybe you've heard of me?”

”I have,” said Ruth rather sharply.

At once Mr. Bilby's round, dented, brown hat came off and he bowed profoundly.

”Happy to make your acquaintance, Miss,” he said.

”You haven't made it yet--near as I can calkerlate,” gruffly said Uncle Jabez. ”And it's mebbe a question if you get much acquainted with Wonota.

What's your business with her, anyway?”