Still Jim Part 45

Pen looked out. Old Suma-theek was standing on the trail, arms folded, watching the tent patiently. He had had one interview with Sara soon after the crippled man had appeared at the dam. The talk had been desultory and in Pen's presence, but never after could the old Indian be induced to come into the tent.

"He like a broken backed snake, your buck," he had said calmly to Pen, whom he had obviously adored from the first.

Pen came down the trail to see what Suma-theek wanted. She knew there was no hurrying him, so she sat down on a stone and waited. Suma-theek seated himself beside her and rolled a cigarette. After he had smoked half of it, he said:

"Boss Still Jim, he heap sad in his heart."

Pen nodded.

"You love him, Pen Squaw?" asked Suma-theek, earnestly.

"We all do," replied Pen. "He and I have known each other many, many years."

"Don't talky-talk!" cried Suma-theek impatiently. "I mean you love him with a big love?"

Pen looked into Suma-theek's face. She had grown very close to the old Indian. And then, as if the flood in her heart was beyond her control, she said:

"You will never tell, Suma-theek?" and as the Apache shook his head she went on eagerly, "I love him so much that after a while I must go away, old friend, or my heart will break!"

The old Indian shook his head wonderingly. "Whites are crazy fools," he groaned. "You sabez he be here only three months more?"

Pen started. "What do you mean, Suma-theek?"

"You no tell 'em!" warned the old chief. "He tell Suma-theek this morning. Big Boss in Was.h.i.+ngton tell 'em he only stay three months, then be on any Projects no more."

Pen sat appalled. "Oh, Suma-theek, that can't be true! You couldn't have heard right. I'll go and ask him now."

Suma-theek laid a hand on her arm. "You no talk to him about it! You last one he want to know. I tell you so you go love him, then he no care what happen."

"Oh, Suma-theek, you don't understand! He loves the dam. It will break his heart to leave it. Even I couldn't comfort him for that. Are you sure you are right?"

Yet even as she repeated the question, Pen's own sick heart answered.

This was what had put the new strain into Jim's face, the new pleading into his voice.

"How shall I help him," she moaned.

"You no tell him, you sabez," repeated Suma-theek. "He want you think he Boss here long as he can. All men's like that with their squaw."

"I won't tell him," promised Pen. "But what shall I do?" She clasped and unclasped her fingers, then she sprang to her feet. "I know! I know!

It will be like a strong arm under his poor overburdened shoulders!"

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SILENT CAMPAIGN

"I have seen that those humans who seek strength from Nature never fail to find it."

MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

Suma-theek waited eagerly. "I'll send for Uncle Benny," said Pen. "He'll leave anything to help Jim."

Suma-theek nodded. "Good medicine. He that fat uncle that love the Big Boss. I sabez him. You get 'em here quick," and Suma-theek sighed with the air of one who had accomplished something.

"I'll telephone a night telegram to Cabillo," said Pen. "He ought to be here in a week. But we mustn't tell the Big Boss or he wouldn't let us do it."

Suma-theek nodded and strolled off. When Pen returned to the tent Sara was full of curiosity, but Pen began to get supper with the remark, "I'm not the proper one to tell you, if you don't know!"

When Pen sent the night telegram, she telephoned to Jane Ames, getting her promise to come up to the dam the next day. As she took the long trail back from the store, where she had gone for privacy in sending her messages, it seemed to Pen that she could not bear to refuse Jim the comfort for which he had begged.

"My one safeguard," she thought, "is to avoid him except where we are chaperoned by half the camp. My poor boy, keeping his real troubles to himself!"

After Sara was asleep that night, Pen slipped over to talk with Mrs.

Flynn. The two women were good friends. Sara's ugliness deprived Pen here as it had in New York of the friends.h.i.+p of most women. In the camp were many charming women who had lived lives with their engineering husbands that made them big of soul and sound of body. But Sara would have none of them. So Pen fell back on Mrs. Ames and Mrs. Flynn and the strangely matched trio had many happy hours together.

But Mrs. Flynn was not in her kitchen, nor was she in her little bedroom. Pen wandered into the living room. Mrs. Flynn was not there, but Jim was lying on the couch asleep, his hat on the floor beside him.

For many moments Pen stood looking at him. Sleep robbed Jim of his guard of self-control. The man lying on the couch, with face relaxed, lips parted, hair tumbled, looked like the boy whom Pen many a time had wakened on the hearth rug of the old library.

Suddenly, with a little sob, Pen dropped on her knees beside the couch and laid her cheek against Jim's. She felt him wake with a start, then she felt a hand that trembled gently laid on her head.

"Heart's dearest, this is mighty good of you!" said Jim huskily.

Pen did not answer, but she put her hand up and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. Jim seized her fingers and carried them to his lips.

"Sweetheart," he said brokenly, "how am I going to bear it without you or--or anything. Oh, Pen, let's go back to Exham and begin all over again!"

Penelope lifted her head and slipped back until she was sitting on the floor beside the couch, with Jim holding both her hands against his hot cheek.

"You will do this often, won't you, dear?" asked Jim.

Pen shook her head. "Jimmy, about twice more like this and I'd be actually thinking seriously of leaving Sara and marrying you. G.o.d help me to keep from ever doing as yellow a thing as that, Still. But, somehow tonight, I thought that just this once would help us both through all the hard months to come. And the memory will be mighty sweet. We--we need a memory to take some of the bitterness out of it all, Still. If I'm wrong in doing this, why the blame is mine alone."

Jim lay silently, holding her hands closer and closer, looking into her face with eyes that did not waver.

Pen smiled and disengaged one hand to smooth his hair again. "I'm a poor preacher. My life is just an endless struggle not to let my mistakes wreck other people as well as myself. Jim, the thing that will be bigger than all we've missed is to make you give the world all the fine force that is in you. We've _got_ to save the dam for you and for the country.

I shall be with you every moment, Jim, no matter where either of us is, bracing you with all the will I've got. Never forget that!"

Little by little the steel lines crept over Jim's face again. "I shall not forget, little Pen. How sweet you are! How good! How less than a lump of dough I'd be if I didn't put up a good fight after this!--dearest!"

In the silence that followed, they did not take their gaze from each other. Then Pen started, as Mrs. Flynn came in at the front door and stopped with her mouth open. But Jim would not free Pen's hand.

"Mother Flynn must have guessed," he said slowly, "and--she knows us both!"

Mrs. Flynn came over to the couch eagerly. "I do that!" she exclaimed, "and my heart is wore to a string, G.o.d knows, sorrowing for the two of you."