Bob Hampton of Placer Part 6

Hampton sat up, spurred into instant admiration by such independence of spirit. "You grow rather good-looking, Kid, when you get hot, but you go at things half-c.o.c.ked, and you 've got to get over it. That's the whole trouble--you 've never been trained, and I would n't make much of a trainer for a high-strung filly like you. Ever remember your mother?"

"Mighty little; reckon she must have died when I was about five years old. That's her picture."

Hampton took in his hand the old-fas.h.i.+oned locket she held out toward him, the long chain still clasped about her throat, and pried open the stiff catch with his knife blade. She bent down to fasten her loosened shoe, and when her eyes were uplifted again his gaze was riveted upon the face in the picture.

"Mighty pretty, wasn't she?" she asked with a sudden girlish interest, bending forward to look, regardless of his strained att.i.tude. "And she was prettier than that even, the way I remember her best, with her hair all hanging down, coming to tuck me into bed at night. Someway that's how I always seem to see her."

The man drew a deep breath, and snapped shut the locket, yet still retained it in his hand. "Is--is she dead?" he questioned, and his voice trembled in spite of steel nerves.

"Yes, in St. Louis; dad took me there with him two years ago, and I saw her grave."

"Dad? Do you mean old Gillis?"

She nodded, beginning dimly to wonder why he should speak so fiercely and stare at her in that odd way. He seemed to choke twice before he could ask the next question.

"Did he--old Gillis, I mean--claim to be your father, or her husband?"

"No, I don't reckon he ever did, but he gave me that picture, and told me she was my mother. I always lived with him, and called him dad. I reckon he liked it, and he was mighty good to me. We were at Randolph a long time, and since then he's been post-trader at Bethune. That's all I know about it, for dad never talked very much, and he used to get mad when I asked him questions."

Hampton dropped the locket from his grasp, and arose to his feet. For several minutes he stood with his back turned toward her, apparently gazing down the valley, his jaw set, his dimmed eyes seeing nothing.

Slowly the color came creeping back into his face, and his hands unclinched. Then he wheeled about, and looked down upon her, completely restored to his old nature.

"Then it seems that it is just you and I, Kid, who have got to settle this little affair," he announced, firmly. "I 'll have my say about it, and then you can uncork your feelings. I rather imagine I have n't very much legal right in the premises, but I 've got a sort of moral grip on you by reason of having pulled you out alive from that canyon yonder, and I propose to play this game to the limit. You say your mother is dead, and the man who raised you is dead, and, so far as either of us know, there is n't a soul anywhere on earth who possesses any claim over you, or any desire to have. Then, naturally, the whole jack-pot is up to me, provided I 've got the cards. Now, Kid, waving your prejudice aside, I ain't just exactly the best man in this world to bring up a girl like you and make a lady out of her. I thought yesterday that maybe we might manage to hitch along together for a while, but I 've got a different think coming to-day. There 's no use disfiguring the truth. I 'm a gambler, something of a fighter on the side, and folks don't say anything too pleasant about my peaceful disposition around these settlements; I have n't any home, and mighty few friends, and the few I have got are nothing to boast about. I reckon there 's a cause for it all. So, considering everything, I 'm about the poorest proposition ever was heard of to start a young ladies' seminary. The Lord knows old Gillis was bad enough, but I 'm a d.a.m.ned sight worse. Now, some woman has got to take you in hand, and I reckon I 've found the right one."

"Goin' to get married, Bob?"

"Not this year; it's hardly become so serious as that, but I 'm going to find you a good home here, and I 'm going to put up plenty of stuff, so that they 'll take care of you all right and proper."

The dark eyes never wavered as they looked steadily into the gray ones, but the chin quivered slightly.

"I reckon I 'd rather try it alone," she announced stubbornly. "Maybe I might have stood it with you, Bob Hampton, but a woman is the limit."

Hampton in other and happier days had made something of a study of the feminine nature, and he realized now the utter impracticability of any attempt at driving.

"I expect it will go rather hard at first, Kid," he admitted craftily, "but I think you might try it a while just to sort of please me."

"Who--who is she?" doubtfully.

"Mrs. Herndon, wife of the superintendent of the 'Golden Rule' mine"; and he waved his hand toward the distant houses. "They tell me she's a mighty fine woman."

"Oh, they do? Then somebody's been stirring you up about me, have they? I thought that was about the way of it. Somebody wants to reform me, I reckon. Well, maybe I won't be reformed. Who was it, Bob?"

"The Presbyterian Missionary," he confessed reluctantly, "a nervy little chap named Wynkoop; he came in to see me last night while you were asleep." He faced her open scorn unshrinkingly, his mind fully decided, and clinging to one thought with all the tenacity of his nature.

"A preacher!" her voice vibrant with derision, "a preacher! Well, of all things, Bob Hampton! You led around by the nose in that way! Did he want you to bring me to Sunday school? A preacher! And I suppose the fellow expects to turn me over to one of his flock for religious instruction. He'll have you studying theology inside of a year. A preacher! Oh, Lord, and you agreed! Well, I won't go; so there!"

"As I understand the affair," Hampton continued, as she paused for breath, "it was Lieutenant Brant who suggested the idea of his coming to me. Brant knew Gillis, and remembered you, and realizing your unpleasant situation, thought such an arrangement would be for your benefit."

"Brant!" she burst forth in renewed anger; "he did, did he! The putty-faced dandy! I used to see him at Bethune, and you can bet he never bothered his head about me then. No, and he didn't even know me out yonder, until after the sergeant spoke up. What business has that fellow got planning what I shall do?"

Hampton made no attempt to answer. It was better to let her indignation die out naturally, and so he asked a question. "What is this Brant doing at Bethune? There is no cavalry stationed there."

She glanced up quickly, interested by the sudden change in his voice.

"I heard dad say he was kept there on some special detail. His regiment is stationed at Fort Lincoln, somewhere farther north. He used to come down and talk with dad evenings, because daddy saw service in the Seventh when it was first organized after the war."

"Did you--did you ever hear either of them say anything about Major Alfred Brant? He must have been this lad's father."

"No, I never heard much they said. Did you know him?"

"The father, yes, but that was years ago. Come, Kid, all this is only ancient history, and just as well forgotten. Now, you are a sensible girl, when your temper don't get away with you, and I am simply going to leave this matter to your better judgment. Will you go to Mrs.

Herndon's, and find out how you like it? You need n't stop there an hour if she is n't good to you, but you ought not to want to remain with me, and grow up like a rough boy."

"You--you really want me to go, don't you?"

"Yes, I want you to go. It's a chance for you, Kid, and there is n't a bit of a show in the kind of a life I lead. I never have been in love with it myself, and only took to it in the first place because the devil happened to drive me that way. The Lord knows I don't want to lead any one else through such a muck. So it is a try?"

The look of defiance faded slowly out of her face as she stood gravely regarding him. The man was in deadly earnest, and she felt the quiet insistence of his manner. He really desired it to be decided in this way, and somehow his will had become her law, although such a suspicion had never once entered her mind.

"You bet, if you put it that way," she consented, simply, "but I reckon that Mrs. Herndon is likely to wish I hadn't."

Together, yet scarcely exchanging another word, the two retraced their steps slowly down the steep trail leading toward the little town in the valley, walking unconsciously the pathway of fate, the way of all the world.

CHAPTER VII

"I'VE COME HERE TO LIVE"

Widely as these two companions differed in temperament and experience, it would be impossible to decide which felt the greater uneasiness at the prospect immediately before them. The girl openly rebellious, the man extremely doubtful, with reluctant steps they approached that tall, homely yellow house--outwardly the most pretentious in Glencaid--which stood well up in the valley, where the main road diverged into numerous winding trails leading toward the various mines among the foothills.

They were so completely opposite, these two, that more than one chance pa.s.ser-by glanced curiously toward them as they picked their way onward through the red dust. Hampton, slender yet firmly knit, his movements quick like those of a watchful tiger, his shoulders set square, his body held erect as though trained to the profession of arms, his gray eyes marking every movement about him with a suspicion born of continual exposure to peril, his features finely chiselled, with threads of gray hair beginning to show conspicuously about the temples.

One would glance twice at him anywhere, for in chin, mouth, and eyes were plainly pictured the signs of strength, evidences that he had fought stern battles, and was no craven. For good or evil he might be trusted to act instantly, and, if need arose, to the very death. His attire of fas.h.i.+onably cut black cloth, and his immaculate linen, while neat and un.o.btrusive, yet appeared extremely unusual in that careless land of clay-baked overalls and dingy woollens. Beside him, in vivid contrast, the girl trudged in her heavy shoes and bedraggled skirts, her sullen eyes fastened doggedly on the road, her hair showing ragged and disreputable in the brilliant suns.h.i.+ne. Hampton himself could not remain altogether indifferent to the contrast.

"You look a little rough, Kid, for a society call," he said. "If there was any shebang in this mud-hole of a town that kept any women's things on sale fit to look at, I 'd be tempted to fix you up a bit."

"Well, I'm glad of it," she responded, grimly. "I hope I look so blame tough that woman won't say a civil word to us. You can bet I ain't going to strain myself to please the likes of her."

"You certainly exhibit no symptoms of doing so," he admitted, frankly.

"But you might, at least, have washed your face and fixed your hair."

She flashed one angry glance at him, stopping in the middle of the road, her head flung back as though ready for battle. Then, as if by some swift magic of emotion, her expression changed. "And so you're ashamed of me, are you?" she asked, her voice sharp but unsteady.

"Ashamed to be seen walking with me? Darn it! I know you are! But I tell you, Mr. Bob Hampton, you won't be the next time. And what's more, you just don't need to traipse along another step with me now. I don't want you. I reckon I ain't very much afraid of tackling this Presbyterian woman all alone."

She swung off fiercely, and the man chuckled softly as he followed, watchfully, through the circling, red dust cloud created by her hasty feet. The truth is, Mr. Hampton possessed troubles and scruples of his own in connection with this contemplated call. He had never met the lady; indeed, he could recall very few of her s.e.x, combining respectability and refinement, whom he had met during the past ten years. But he retained some memory of the husband as having been a.s.sociated with a strenuous poker game at Placer, in which he also held a prominent place, and it would seem scarcely possible that the wife did not know whose bullet had turned her for some weeks into a sick-nurse. For Herndon he had not even a second thought, but the possible ordeal of a woman's tongue was another matter. A cordial reception could hardly be antic.i.p.ated, and Hampton mentally braced himself for the worst.

There were some other things, also, but these he brushed aside for the present. He was not the sort of man to wear his heart upon his sleeve, and all his life long he had fought out his more serious battles in loneliness and silence. Now he had work to accomplish in the open; he was going to stay with the Kid--after that, _quien sabe_? So he smiled somewhat soberly, swore softly to himself, and strode on. He had never yet thrown down his cards merely because luck had taken a bad turn.