The Land of Strong Men Part 33

He saw smoke rising from the chimney, and when he dismounted and ascended the steps he heard a strange swis.h.i.+ng and thumping, accompanied by a melancholy moaning which put him in mind of a dog scratching a sore ear. Wondering what on earth the racket was about, he knocked.

The noise ceased, heavy footsteps utterly unlike Faith Winton's crossed the floor, the door opened and a strange lady confronted him. She was short, but extremely broad of beam. Her hair, streaked with gray, had once been a fiery red. She had keen, aggressive blue eyes, a short, turned-up nose, and a wide mouth with perfect white teeth. Her sleeves were rolled above her elbows, showing a pair of solid, red, freckled forearms, and in one hand she carried a mop. Amazed at this apparition, Angus gaped at her.

"Well," said the lady in accents which left no doubt of her nationality, "well, misther man, an' phwat will yez be wantin'?"

"Is Miss Winton at home?" Angus asked.

"She is _nat_."

"She's living here now, isn't she?"

"She is."

"Which way has she gone?"

"I dunno."

"Then I'll wait," Angus decided.

"Outside!" the lady also decided.

Bang! The door shut in Angus' face. Immediately the thump and swish began again, though the moaning obligato did not. Angus sat down on the steps and filled his pipe, but found he had no matches. For some moments he sat there, sucking the cold stem and wondering where the deuce Faith Winton had picked up this woman. No doubt she and her girl friend had gone for a walk. Well, he might as well be doing something.

He went around to the back of the house where he had hauled a pile of wood, picked up an old ax and began to split. Once the lady of the mop came to the back door and took a long look at him. By and by, tiring of splitting and wanting a smoke very badly, he put on his coat and went to the door to request a match. The lady of the mop met him on the threshold.

"Could you give me--" he began, but she cut him short.

"I could _nat_," she said grimly. "Who asked ye to do ut? On yer way!"

"But--"

"They's nawthin' comin' to ye," the lady a.s.serted. "Ut's no handout yez'll get here."

"But I don't want--"

"Yez want coin, do yez? Divil th' cint will yez get!"

"No, no," Angus protested, "you're all wrong. I want--"

"An' do I care phwat yez want, ye black-avised bo?" the lady shouted in a tops'l-yard-ahoy bellow. "Beggars on ha.r.r.s.eback I've heerd iv, but ye're the first I've seen. On yer way; or th' flat iv me hand and th'

toe iv me boot is phwat ye'll dhraw, for all the bigness iv ye, ye long, lazy, herrin'--bel--"

"Give me a match!" Angus roared through this wealth of personal description, despairing of making his want known otherwise. "I want a match, that's all."

"A match?" the lady exclaimed.

"Sure, to light my pipe with," Angus told her. "I'm not a hobo. I'm working the place for Miss Winton."

"And why couldn't ye say so before?" she demanded, frowning at him.

"Because you wouldn't give me a chance. You wouldn't let me get in a word edgeways."

"G.o.d save us all, an' maybe I wouldn't then," she admitted. "Is Mackay th' name iv ye? Come in an' sit down. A match, is ut? Here ye are, then."

Angus sat down and lit his pipe, while she stared at him.

"Faix, then, I wouldn't have knowed ye at all, at all," she said.

"Well, you never saw me before."

"Be description, I mane. She said--"

"Miss Winton?"

"Who else? Yez do be big enough, but homelier than she said."

"Did she say I was homely?"

"Did I say so?" the lady returned, and her blue eyes twinkled.

"Not exactly. But--"

"Then don't be puttin' words into a woman's mouth, for G.o.d knows they's no need iv ut," she told him. "An' so ye do be th' Mackay lad I've been hearin' iv, that found her whin she was a little, lost wan, an' shooted that murtherin' divil iv a grizzly bear!"

Angus acknowledged his ident.i.ty and diffidently inquired the lady's name.

"Me name, is ut? They's times whin I have to stop an' think. Mary Kelly I was born, an' me first was Tim Phelan. A slip iv a gyurl I was then, an' little more when they waked him. Dhrowned he was, but sure wather was always fatal to his fam'ly, an' maybe it was all for the best, as Father Paul said whin he married me to Dan Shaughnessy after a dacint year. But he died himself, the holy man, before Dan fell off the roof, an' it was Father Kerrigan said the words over me an' Pether Finucane.

It was Dinney Foley brought me th' news iv th' premachure blast that tuk Pether, an' I married him. Dinny was me last. So me name's Mrs. Foley."

"And is Mr. Foley here on the ranch?" Angus asked.

"I hope not," Mrs. Foley returned with apprehension. "Givin' him th'

best iv ut, he's wid th' blessid saints. A voylent man was poor Dinney, as broad as ye, but not so high, an' a lion wid a muckstick. But phwat's a muckstick to knives? Sure thim dirty dagoes is born wid thim in their hands. Though he stretched thim right an' left wid th' shovel, he could not gyard his back. So whin I buried him I quit. No, I've had no luck at all keepin' men." And Mrs. Foley sighed, pursed up her lips and shook her head at Angus.

"You do seem to have been out of luck," Angus sympathized gravely. "Have you known Miss Winton long."

"As long as she is. I nursed her wid me own b'y that died."

"And have you known this girl friend of hers, long, too?"

"Phwat gyurl friend?"

"The one who is here with her--her companion."

"I'm her," Mrs. Foley returned. "Where do ye get this gyurl friend thing, anyway?"

But Angus could not tell. He had put his own construction on Faith Winton's words. At any rate Mrs. Foley seemed a capable companion.

"Well, I hope you'll like it here," he said. "It may be a little lonely, but there's nothing to be afraid of. Bears seldom come down on the benchlands now, and there are no hoboes worse than I am."