The Spoilers of the Valley Part 46

"I ain't got no more, Jim. Honest! That every dam-one,--honest!

"Say,--maybe she tell you her name? Is it--is it Gracie Peters?"

"No!"

"Is it Sal Larigan?"

"No!"

"Betty----"

"Yes,--that's it! Betty--Betty Jornsen!"

"What? Betty she come? Jumpin' Yiminy! Let me get my hat and coat.

Where is she now? By gosh, Jim,--she dam-fine little peach."

Sol became more and more excited. "I got her picture here. You miss it up. See!"

He ran over the photographs.

"There," he exclaimed, holding it up admiringly.

It was Betty's photograph, and a perfectly charming little picture she made too. But Jim had intentionally pa.s.sed it over, for he was not through with Sol Hanson. He had still his pound of flesh to exact.

"Ain't that dam-fine girl?" Sol went on. "See that, Phil! I been going to marry her. You bet! Tra-la-la!" he half sang. "Come on!--let's go and find her, Jim. Come on!"

"Wait a bit!--Bide a wee!" returned canny Scot Langford. "That isn't the picture of the woman who is here for you."

Sol's face fell.

"What? But you say her name's Betty Jornsen?"

"Yes! That is what she told me."

"Well!--that's Betty;--that's her."

"Oh, no it isn't! Don't you fool yourself, mister man. You're mixed up in your women, Sol."

"No siree! You look on back," Sol returned triumphantly. "See that!

'With love and kisses to Sol from Betty Jornsen.'"

Jim stood for a moment in silence.

"She nice little girl;--come up, maybe, to your shoulder?" queried Sol.

"No, Sol!--she's six feet high if she is an inch."

"She got fair hair and blue eyes; nice white teeth?"

"No, laddie!--she has carroty red hair; and her eyes, I mean her eye--for she has only one--is a bleary, grey colour."

Sol commenced to perspire afresh, and to hop from one foot on to the other.

"Aw, you foolin' me, Jim!"

"Devil a fool! It is too serious for that. She's big; she's got one eye; she's lost her teeth in front and she is evidently a widow or she has three kids with her, two at her skirts and one in her arms."

"Good Christopher Columbus!" exclaimed Sol, pulling at his hair.

"And, and, Sol,--she is coming here for you, in five minutes."

The big blacksmith was in desperation.

"Sol,--you're done;--you're done brown," Jim went on relentlessly, "and it serves you darned well right."

"But, Jim,--you been a lawyer. She can't go make me marry her?"

"Yes she can!"

"But she lie to me. She send me picture of nice girl and say it her and she Betty Jornsen. I tell her to come to me, from her picture,--see!"

"You big, blue-eyed, innocent baby! You're done;--you're in the soup;--your goose is cooked. Take it from me,--she's got you, and got you good.

"Didn't you send her my photo and say it was yours?"

Sol stood aghast.

"Aw,--that just a joke!" he persisted.

"Hadn't she a perfect right to do the same thing to you? Well--evidently she has done it. Poor Sol!"

"But--but----"

"It's no good. There aren't any _buts_ to this. She is here. She is expecting Sol Hanson to be a fine looking fellow like me, and the poor thing is going to get a pie-faced, slop-eyed individual like yourself.

"Now, you're expecting a pretty little blonde and you're getting,--well,--something totally different."

Jim slapped Sol on the back.

"Too bad! Take your medicine, though, old man! Be a sport! You're distinctly up against it."

Phil was metaphorically in knots by the furnace fire.

Sol rushed for his coat.

"No dam-fear!" he cried. "I go to coop first. She ain't been going to run any bluff on Sol Hanson,--see! You tell her, and her carrots-hair, and her one eye, and her three dam-kids, to go plumb toboggan to h.e.l.l.

"I come back sometime--maybe."