Lin McLean Part 28

"Yes, m'm."

"Good-day, m'm."

"Thank yu', m'm."

They got themselves out of the station and into their saddles.

"No, she don't understand things yet," soliloquized the Virginian. "Oh dear, no." He turned his slow, dark eyes upon us. "You Lin McLean," said he, in his gentle voice, "you have cert'nly fooled me plumb through this mawnin'."

Then the horde rode out of town, chastened and orderly till it was quite small across the sagebrush, when reaction seized it. It sped suddenly and vanished in dust with far, hilarious cries and here were Lin and I, and here towered the water-tank, s.h.i.+ning and s.h.i.+ning.

Thus did Separ's vigilante take possession and vindicate Lin's knowledge of his kind. It was not three days until the Virginian, that lynx observer, fixed his grave eyes upon McLean "'Neighbor' is as cute a name for a six-shooter as ever I heard," said he. "But she'll never have need of your gun in Separ--only to shoot up peaceful playin'-cyards while she hearkens to your courtin'."

That was his way of congratulation to a brother lover. "Plumb strange,"

he said to me one morning after an hour of riding in silence, "how a man will win two women while another man gets aged waitin' for one."

"Your hair seems black as ever," said I.

"My hopes ain't so glossy any more," he answered. "Lin has done better this second trip."

"Mrs. Lusk don't count," said I.

"I reckon she counted mighty plentiful when he thought he'd got her clamped to him by lawful marriage. But Lin's lucky." And the Virginian fell silent again.

Lucky Lin bestirred him over his work, his plans, his ranch on Box Elder that was one day to be a home for his lady. He came and went, seeing his idea triumph and his girl respected. Not only was she a girl, but a good shot too. And as if she and her small, neat home were a sort of possession, the cow-punchers would boast of her to strangers. They would have dealt heavily now with the wretch who should trifle with the water-tank. When camp came within visiting distance, you would see one or another shaving and parting his hair. They wrote unnecessary letters, and brought them to mail as excuses for an afternoon call. Honey Wiggin, more original, would look in the door with his grin, and hold up an ace of clubs. "I thought maybe yu' could spare a minute for a shootin'-match," he would insinuate; and Separ now heard no more objectionable shooting than this. Texas brought her presents of game--antelope, sage-chickens--but, shyness intervening, he left them outside the door, and entering, dressed in all the "Sunday" that he had, would sit dumbly in the lady's presence. I remember his emerging from one of these placid interviews straight into the hands of his tormentors.

"If she don't notice your clothes, Texas," said the Virginian, "just mention them to her."

"Now yer've done offended her," shrilled Mana.s.sas Donohoe. "She heard that."

"She'll hear you singin' sooprano," said Honey Wiggin. "It's good this country has reformed, or they'd have you warblin' in some dance-hall and corrupt your morals."

"You sca'cely can corrupt the morals of a soprano man," observed the Virginian. "Go and play with Billy till you can talk ba.s.s."

But it was the boldest adults that Billy chose for playmates. Texas he found immature. Moreover, when next he came, he desired play with no one. Summer was done. September's full moon was several nights ago; he had gone on his hunt with Lin, and now spelling-books were at hand. But more than this clouded his mind, he had been brought to say good-bye to Jessamine Buckner, who had scarcely seen him, and to give her a wolverene-skin, a hunting trophy. "She can have it," he told me. "I like her." Then he stole a look at his guardian. "If they get married and send me back to mother," said he, "I'll run away sure." So school and this old dread haunted the child, while for the man, Lin the lucky, who suspected nothing of it, time was ever bringing love nearer to his hearth. His Jessamine had visited Box Elder, and even said she wanted chickens there; since when Mr. McLean might occasionally have been seen at his cabin, worrying over barn-yard fowls, feeding and cursing them with equal care. Spring would see him married, he told me.

"This time right!" he exclaimed. "And I want her to know Billy some more before he goes to Bear Creek."

"Ah, Bear Creek!" said Billy, acidly. "Why can't I stay home?"

"Home sounds kind o' slick," said Lin to me. "Don't it, now? 'Home' is closer than 'neighbor,' you bet! Billy, put the horses in the corral, and ask Miss Buckner if we can come and see her after supper. If you're good, maybe she'll take yu' for a ride to-morrow. And, kid, ask her about Laramie."

Again suspicion quivered over Billy's face, and he dragged his horses angrily to the corral.

Lin nudged me, laughing. "I can rile him every time about Laramie," said he, affectionately. "I wouldn't have believed the kid set so much store by me. Nor I didn't need to ask Jessamine to love him for my sake. What do yu' suppose? Before I'd got far as thinking of Billy at all--right after Edgeford, when my head was just a whirl of joy--Jessamine says to me one day, 'Read that.' It was Governor Barker writin' to her about her brother and her sorrow." Lin paused. "And about me. I can't never tell you--but he said a heap I didn't deserve. And he told her about me picking up Billy in Denver streets that time, and doing for him because his own home was not a good one. Governor Barker wrote Jessamine all that; and she said, 'Why did you never tell me?' And I said it wasn't anything to tell. And she just said to me, 'It shall be as if he was your son and I was his mother.' And that's the first regular kiss she ever gave me I didn't have to take myself. G.o.d bless her! G.o.d bless her!"

As we ate our supper, young Billy burst out of brooding silence: "I didn't ask her about Laramie. So there!"

"Well, well, kid," said the cow-puncher, patting his head, "yu' needn't to, I guess."

But Billy's eye remained sullen and jealous. He paid slight attention to the picture-book of soldiers and war that Jessamine gave him when we went over to the station. She had her own books, some flowers in pots, a rocking-chair, and a cosey lamp that shone on her bright face and dark dress. We drew stools from the office desks, and Billy perched silently on one.

"Scanty room for company!" Jessamine said. "But we must make out this way--till we have another way." She smiled on Lin, and Billy's face darkened. "Do you know," she pursued to me, "with all those chickens Mr.

McLean tells me about, never a one has he thought to bring here."

"Livin' or dead do you want 'em?" inquired Lin.

"Oh, I'll not bother you. Mr. Donohoe says he will--"

"Texas? Chickens? Him? Then he'll have to steal 'em!" And we all laughed together.

"You won't make me go back to Laramie, will you?" spoke Billy, suddenly, from his stool.

"I'd like to see anybody try to make you?" exclaimed Jessamine. "Who says any such thing?"

"Lin did," said Billy.

Jessamine looked at her lover reproachfully. "What a way to tease him!"

she said. "And you so kind. Why, you've hurt his feelings!"

"I never thought," said Lin the boisterous. "I wouldn't have."

"Come sit here, Billy," said Jessamine. "Whenever he teases, you tell me, and we'll make him behave."

"Honest?" persisted Billy.

"Shake hands on it," said Jessamine.

"Cause I'll go to school. But I won't go back to Laramie for no one. And you're a-going to be Lin's wife, honest?"

"Honest! Honest!" And Jessamine, laughing, grew red beside her lamp.

"Then I guess mother can't never come back to Lin, either," stated Billy, relieved.

Jessamine let fall the child's hand.

"Cause she liked him onced, and he liked her."

Jessamine gazed at Lin.

"It's simple," said the cow-puncher. "It's all right."

But Jessamine sat by her lamp, very pale.

"It's all right," repeated Lin in the silence, s.h.i.+fting his foot and looking down. "Once I made a fool of myself. Worse than usual."

"Billy?" whispered Jessamine. "Then you--But his name is Lusk!"