Joan of Arc of the North Woods Part 16

"I'm not expecting anybody to meet me--here--to-day," she informed him, understanding his side glances. She was showing incert.i.tude, uneasiness--as if she were slipping back into a former mood after the p.r.i.c.k of her surprise. "There's a hotel here, I suppose."

He took her traveling case from her hand, muttering a proffer to a.s.sist her. They walked away together. For the second time the loafers at Adonia saw Latisan escorting a strange woman along the street, and this one, also, was patently from the city, in spite of her modest attire.

"Seems to be doing quite a wholesale business, importing dynamite and wimmen," observed a cynic.

"According to the stories in Tomah, he has put in quite a lot of time looking over the market in regard to that last-named," agreed another detractor.

"And when Eck Flagg gets the news I'd rather take my chances with the dynamite than with the wimmen," stated the cynic.

"I guess I talked to you like an idiot at first," said Latisan, when he and his companion were apart from the persons on the station platform.

"I'm getting control of my surprise. I remember you told me you were homesick for the woods. That's why you're up here, I suppose."

"It's one reason, Mr. Latisan."

"I'm sorry it isn't a better time of year. I'd like to--to--If you aren't going to be tied up too much with friends, I could show you around a little. But right now I'm tied up, myself. I'm drive master for Echford Flagg--you remember about speaking of him."

"Yes; but I shall not trouble Mr. Flagg," she hastened to say. "He will not be interested in me simply on account of my friends. You are very busy on the drive, are you?" she questioned, earnestly.

"Oh yes. I've got to start for headwaters in the morning." There was doleful regret in his tones.

He was rather surprised to find so much pleased animation in her face; truly, this girl from the city acted as if she were delighted by the news of his going away; she even seemed to be confessing it. "I'm glad!"

she cried. Then she smoothed matters after a glance at his grieved and puzzled face. "I'm glad to hear a man say that he's devoted to his work.

So many these days don't seem to take any interest in what they're doing--they only talk wages. Yours must be a wonderful work--on the river--the excitement and all!"

"Yes," he admitted, without enthusiasm.

The street was muddy and they went slowly; he hung back as if he wanted to drag out the moments of their new companions.h.i.+p.

He cast about for a topic; he did not feel like expatiating on the prospects ahead of him in his work. "If you're going to make much of a stop here----"

She did not take advantage of his pause; he hoped she would indicate the proposed length of her stay, and he was worrying himself into a panic for fear she would not be in Adonia on his next visit to report to Flagg.

"I wish we had a better hotel here, so that you'd stay all contented for a time--and--and enjoy the country hereabouts."

"Isn't the hotel a fit place for a woman who is unaccompanied?"

"Oh, that isn't it! It's the slack way Brophy runs it. The help question! Martin does the best he knows how, but he finds it hard to keep table girls here in the woods. Has to keep falling back on his nephew, and the nephew isn't interested in the waiter job. Wants to follow his regular line."

"And what's that?" she asked, holding to a safe topic.

"Running Dave's stable. Nephew says the horses can't talk back."

She stopped and faced him. "Do you think the landlord would hire me as a waitress?" She had come to Adonia in haste, leaving her plans to hazard.

Now she was obeying sudden inspiration.

If she had slapped him across the face she could not have provoked more astonishment and dismay than his countenance showed.

"I have done much waiting at tables." She grimly reflected on the cafes where she had sought the most for her money. "I'm not ashamed to confess it."

He stammered before he was able to control his voice. "It isn't that.

You ought to be proud to work. I mean I'm glad--no, what I mean is I don't understand why--why----"

"Why I have come away up here for such a job?"

"I haven't the grit to ask any questions of you!" he confessed, plaintively, his memory poignant on that point.

The stout "drummer" had been trailing them from the station. When they halted he pa.s.sed them slowly, staring wide-eyed at the girl, asking her amazed questions with his gaze. She flung the Vose-Mern operative a look of real fury; she had come north in a fighting mood.

"I have left the city to escape just such men as that--men who aren't willing to let a girl have a square chance. I lost my last position because I slapped a cheap insulter's face in a hotel dining hall." She looked over Latisan's head when she twisted the truth. "I came north, to the woods, just as far as that railroad would take me. I hate a city!"

Then she looked straight at him, and there was a ring of sincerity in her tone. "I'm glad to be where those are!" She pointed to the trees which thatched the slopes of the hills.

"You're speaking of friends of mine!"

They had stopped, facing each other. Crowley, lashed by looks from the girl and Latisan, had hurried on toward the tavern.

Lida knew that the drive master was having hard work to digest the information she had given him.

"They are standing up straight and are honest old chaps," he went on. He was looking into her eyes and his calm voice had a musing tone. "I like to call them my friends."

He was trying hard to down the queer notions that were popping up. He would not admit that he was suspecting this girl of deceit. But she was so manifestly not what she claimed that she was! Still, there were reverses that might----

"I am alone in a strange land--n.o.body to back my word about myself. I must call on a reliable witness. You know the witness." She put up her hand and touched her hat. Then came laughter--first from her and then from Latisan--to relieve the situation. "You saw me wearing it more than six months ago. What better proof of my humble position in life do you want?"

"I don't dare to tell you what you ought to be, Miss----"

"Patsy Jones," she returned, glibly; his quest for her name could not be disregarded.

"But what you are right now is good enough because it's honest work."

"Do you think I can get the job?"

"I am a witness of Martin Brophy's standing offer to give one thousand dollars for a table girl who won't get homesick or get married."

"Take me in and collect the reward, Mr. Latisan. I'm a safe proposition, both ways."

"I hope not!" he blurted--and then marched on with the red flooding beneath his tan.

And though he strove to put all his belief in her word about herself, he was conscious of a persistent doubt, and was angered by it.

"If you please, I'll do the talking to Mr. Brophy--is that his name?--when we reach the hotel," said the girl. "You really do not know me." There was a flash of honesty, she felt, in that statement, and she wanted to be as honest as she could--not wholly a compound of lies in her new role. "It might seem queer, my presenting myself under your indors.e.m.e.nt, as if we had been acquainted somewhere else. Gossip up here is easily started, isn't it?"

"It is."

He surrendered her bag to her at the porch, as if his services had been merely the cursory politeness of one who was traveling her way. It was in Latisan's mind to go along to the big house on the ledges and inform Flagg what had been done that day, and glory in the boast that there was a new man in the region who could make a way for himself in spite of Flagg's opinions as to the prowess of an old man.

Latisan was feeling strangely exhilarated. She had come there to stay!

Martin Brophy was in the desperate state of need to chain a girl like that one to a table leg in his desire to keep her. And she had announced her own feelings in the matter! She was in the Noda--the girl who had stepped out of his life never to enter it again, so he had feared in his lonely ponderings. He was in the mood of a real man at last! He was resolved to take no more of Echford Flagg's contumely. He was heartsick at the thought of starting north and leaving her in the tavern, to be the object of attentions such as that cheap drummer man bestowed when he pa.s.sed them on the street.

The plea of the lady of the tavern parlor had made merely a ripple in his resolves. He had not thought of her or her proposition during that busy day.