The Spoilers of the Valley Part 43

"Not yet! This is Sat.u.r.day morning, man. My usual monthly 'Penny Horrible' is only half finished and it has to be ready before mail time."

Phil laughed.

"What is the name of it this month, Jim?"

"'Two Fingered Pete's Come-back, a Backwoods Mystery.'"

"Sounds exciting!" remarked Phil. "I think I would like to read that one. Save a copy for me, Jim, when it comes along."

"De'il the fear! It'll never be said that Jim Langford, alias Captain Mayne Plunkett, alias Aunt Christina, ever put anything your way that would fire you, in your rashness, to disgrace me and make a fool of yourself."

Jim changed the subject again.

"Phil, why don't you cut that bluffer, Brenchfield, out?"

"Me? What harm have I done, Jim?"

"That'll do, laddie. You can't brazen it out that way. Man, I'd give my wee pinkie to see it happen."

"Oh, don't talk rot!" returned Phil, serious as an owl, nevertheless pale at the lips. "What chance has an impecunious day-labourer like me with Miss Pederstone?

"Why don't you try yourself? You're mighty good at arranging things for your friends."

Jim laughed.

Phil turned his head and glared at him; and Jim laughed more uproariously.

"What are you yelling your Tom-fool head off for? I don't see anything funny about the proposition."

"What? You can't see anything funny in it? Gee, Phil!--but you're dull. Eileen Pederstone hitched to Wayward Langford, booze fighter, ne'er-do-weel, good-for-nothing, never-worked-and-never-will; a-penny-a-liner; Aunt Christina and Captain Mayne Plunkett!"

He became sober again.

"Man, Phil!--I'm ashamed of you even suggesting it. I once fell in love. Don't get anxious; it was a long time ago when I had ambitions of becoming Lord Chief Justice, or at least a High Court Judge."

"Yes!"

"The lady and I fell out over her father. He asked me one night how much money I had in the bank. I was eighteen.

"I told him I had twenty pounds.

"'Tuts, tuts!' said the old fellow, who was one of those human fireworks--all fizzle and flare,--'that isn't enough to keep a cat.'

"'We know it,' I answered, speaking for both of us, 'but we thought we might manage to run along for a while without the cat.'"

Phil laughed.

"The old chapie got angry, and the girl sacked me because I was rude to papa and flippant about the most serious thing in the world--marriage. She couldn't see the joke. Imagine, Phil, being married to a woman that couldn't see a joke!

"That was the very nearest I ever got. And believe me----!

"Now you, for instance; you're different, you're just made for married life; you're young, big, handsome, mannerly, sober, sometimes diligent, ambitious. You don't smoke much, you don't swear--not all the time--and you can chop wood and brush your own boots. You----"

But Jim got no further. A cus.h.i.+on, well aimed, stopped his flow of talk.

"All right, all right! We'll say no more. Go and have your bath! You need it. Give your soul a touch o' soap and water when you are at it."

CHAPTER XV

Sol's Matrimonial Mix-Up

For the few days following, the robbery and the rounding-up of the thieves were the talk of the district; but despite this, it was surprising how little _The Vernock and District Advertiser_ had to say about it.

Phil openly commented on the peculiarity, but Jim just stuck his tongue in his cheek.

Neither McLean nor the wounded half-breed were seriously hurt, and in a week both were well again--the one going lamely about his business and the other in jail beside his fellows.

The trial was placed on the calendar for the next a.s.sizes which had been arranged for the following month, when most of the Fall crops would be in and s.h.i.+pped, thereby leaving twelve good men and true free to devote some of their time to the requirements of law and justice.

Jim went back again to the Court House as Government Agent Thompson's a.s.sistant. Phil kept to the forge, serious and tremendously earnest in following the calling he had been so strangely thrust into.

He could not fail to notice, day by day, the gradual change that was coming over Sol Hanson. Sol had not been drunk for weeks. He dressed himself much more neatly than formerly, although what it was exactly that gave him the smarter appearance, Phil could not make out until Smiler led him to understand by signs and grimaces that Sol now washed his face and hands mornings and evenings, instead of every Sunday morning as formerly.

But there was something else.

Sol's blue eyes had contracted a habit of gazing into the heart of the fire while he leaned abstractedly on the bellows handle. He became interested in the train arrivals. He posted letters and called every day at the post office for mail. Whether he got any or not Phil was unable to say definitely. But he got a sneaking suspicion after a while, that the soft-hearted, simple, big fellow was either answering letters through the Seattle _Matrimonial Times_, or corresponding with some lady friend. He felt convinced that Sol was badly, or rather, madly in love.

He probed the big Swede with the sharp end of a question now and again, but Sol was wonderfully impervious.

One day, Jim and Phil were strolling leisurely up Main Street from the Kenora Hotel where they had been having an early lunch together. The north train had just come in and a few drummers, some incoming Chinamen and a number of straggling pa.s.sengers were spreading themselves for their different destinations, carrying grips and canvas bags with their samples and their belongings as the case might be.

Neither Jim nor Phil was paying any heed to what was a daily occurrence, until they were stopped by a buxom, fair-haired, blue-eyed maiden, with a pleasant smile on her big, innocent face. She was cheaply but becomingly dressed and filled her clothes with attractive generosity. As she laid down her two hand-bags, her smile broadened and beamed until it broke into a merry dimple on each of her cheeks and parted her ruddy lips to the exposure of a mouthful of fresh, creamy-looking, well-formed teeth.

There was no gainsaying who was the object of her smiles:--it was Jim Langford and Jim alone, and there was nothing left for either him or Phil to do but to doff their hats and wait the lady's good pleasure.

She seemed in no hurry to speak.

As Jim gazed at her in surprise, waiting; her fingers--hard, red fingers they were--began to twist a little nervously about the painfully new gloves she carried, and her eyes dropped, looked up, and dropped again.

"Guess you don't know me!" she ventured at last.

"No! I'm sorry! I can't remember ever meeting you before," he answered.

"Ho, ho!" muttered Phil under his breath.

"See you later, Jim!" he said loudly, making to move off.