Whispering Smith Part 23

"Very good. Let me watch this hen for a few minutes and diagnose her.

You go on to your other chickens. I'll stay here and think."

d.i.c.ksie went down through the yards. When she came back, Whispering Smith was sitting on a cracker-box watching the bantam. The chicken was making desperate efforts to get off d.i.c.ksie's cord and join its companions in the runway. Smith was eying the bantam critically when d.i.c.ksie rejoined him. "Do you usually," he asked, looking suddenly up, "have success in setting roosters?"

"Now you are having fun with me again."

"No, by Heaven! I am not."

"Have you diagnosed the case?"

"I have, and I have diagnosed it as a case of mistaken ident.i.ty."

"Ident.i.ty?"

"And misapplied energy. Miss d.i.c.ksie, you have tied up the wrong bird.

This is not a bantam hen at all; this is a bantam rooster. Now that is _my_ judgment. Compare him with the others. Notice how much darker his plumage is--it's the rooster," declared Whispering Smith, wiping the perplexity from his brow. "Don't feel bad, not at all. Cut him loose, Miss d.i.c.ksie--don't hesitate; do it on my responsibility. Now let's look at the cannibal leghorns--and great Caesar."

CHAPTER XXIV

BETWEEN GIRLHOOD AND WOMANHOOD

About nine o'clock that night Puss ushered McCloud in from the river.

d.i.c.ksie came running downstairs to meet him. "Your cousin insisted I should come up to the house for some supper," said McCloud dryly. "I could have taken camp fare with the men. Gordon stayed there with him."

d.i.c.ksie held his hat in her hand, and her eyes were bright in the firelight. Puss must have thought the two made a handsome couple, for she lingered, as she started for the kitchen, to look back.

"Puss," exclaimed her mistress, "fry a chicken right away! A big one, Puss! Mr. McCloud is very hungry, I know. And be quick, do! Oh, how is the river, Mr. McCloud?"

"Behaving like a lamb. It hasn't fallen much, but the pressure seems to be off the bank, if you know what that means?"

"You must be a magician! Things changed the minute you came!"

"The last doctor usually gets credit for the cure, you know."

"Oh, I know all about that. Don't you want to freshen up? Should you mind coming right to my room? Marion is in hers," explained d.i.c.ksie, "and I am never sure of Cousin Lance's,--he has so many boots."

When she had disposed of McCloud she flew to the kitchen. Puss was starting after a chicken. "Take a lantern, Puss!" whispered d.i.c.ksie vehemently.

"No, indeed; dis n.i.g.g.e.r don' need no lantern fo' chickens, Miss d.i.c.ksie."

"But get a good one, Puss, and make haste, do! Mr. McCloud must be starved! Where is the baking powder? I'll get the biscuits started."

Puss turned fiercely. "Now look-a heah, yo' can't make biscuits! Yo'

jes' go se' down wif dat young gen'm'n! Jes' lemme lone, ef yo'

please! Dis ain't de firs' time I killed chickens, Miss d.i.c.ksie, an'

made biscuits. Jes' clair out an' se' down! Place f'r young ladies is in de parlor! Ol' Puss can cook supper f'r one man yet--ef she _has_ to!"

"Oh, yes, Puss, certainly, I know, of course; only, get a nice chicken!" and with the parting admonition d.i.c.ksie, smoothing her hair wildly, hastened back to the living-room.

But the harm was done. Puss, more excited than her mistress, lost her head when she got to the chicken-yard, and with sufficiently bad results. When d.i.c.ksie ran out a few moments afterward for a gla.s.s of water for McCloud, Puss was calmly wiping her hands, and in the sink lay the quivering form of young Caesar. d.i.c.ksie caught her favorite up by the legs and suppressed a cry. There could be no mistake. She cast a burning look on Puss. It would do no good to storm now. d.i.c.ksie only wrung her hands and returned to McCloud.

He rose in the happiest mood. He could not see what a torment d.i.c.ksie was in, and took the water without asking himself why it trembled in her hand. Her restrained manner did not worry him, for he felt that his fight at the river was won, and the prospect of fried chicken composed him. Even the long hour before Puss, calm and inviting in a white cap and ap.r.o.n, appeared to announce supper, pa.s.sed like a dream. When d.i.c.ksie rose to lead the way to the dining-room, McCloud walked on air; the high color about her eyes intoxicated him. Not till half the fried chicken, with many compliments from McCloud, had disappeared, and the plate had gone out for the second dozen biscuits, did he notice d.i.c.ksie's abstraction.

"I'm sure you need worry no longer about the water," he observed rea.s.suringly. "I think the worst of the danger is past."

d.i.c.ksie looked at the table-cloth with wide-open eyes. "I feel sure that it is. I am no longer worrying about that."

"It's nothing I can do or leave undone, is it?" asked McCloud, laughing a little as he implied in his tone that she must be worrying about something.

d.i.c.ksie made a gesture of alarm. "Oh, no, no; nothing!"

"It's a pretty good plan not to worry about anything."

"Do you think so?"

"Why, we all thought so last night. Heavens!" McCloud drew back in his chair. "I never offered you a piece of chicken! What have I been thinking of?"

"Oh, I wouldn't eat it anyway!" cried d.i.c.ksie.

"You wouldn't? It is delicious. Do have a plate and a wing at least."

"Really, I could not bear to think of it," she said pathetically.

He spoke lower. "Something is troubling you. I have no right to a confidence, I know," he added, taking a biscuit.

Her eyes fell to the floor. "It is nothing. Pray, don't mind me. May I fill your cup?" she asked, looking up. "I am afraid I worry too much over what has happened and can't be helped. Do you never do that?"

McCloud, laughing wretchedly, tore Caesar's last leg from his body. "No indeed. I never worry over what can't be helped."

They left the dining-room. Marion came down. But they had hardly seated themselves before the living-room fire when a messenger arrived with word that McCloud was wanted at the river. His chagrin at being dragged away was so apparent that Marion and d.i.c.ksie sympathized with him and laughed at him. "'I never worry about what can't be helped,'"

d.i.c.ksie murmured.

He looked at Marion. "That's a shot at me. You don't want to go down, do you?" he asked ironically, looking from one to the other.

"Why, of course I'll go down," responded d.i.c.ksie promptly. "Marion caught cold last night, I guess, so you will excuse her, I know. I will be back in an hour, Marion, and you can toast your cold while I'm gone."

"But you mustn't go alone!" protested McCloud.

d.i.c.ksie lifted her chin the least bit. "I shall be going with you, shall I not? And if the messenger has gone back I shall have to guide you. You never could find your way alone."

"But I can go," interposed Marion, rising.

"Not at all; you can _not_ go!" announced d.i.c.ksie. "I can protect both Mr. McCloud and myself. If he should arrive down there under the wing of two women he would never hear the last of it. I am mistress here still, I think; and I sha'n't be leaving home, you know, to make the trip!"