CHAPTER XVI
FOR ONCE AT LEAST LITE HAD HIS WAY
Half a mile she galloped, and met Lite coming home. She glanced overher shoulder before she pulled Pard down to a walk, and Lite'sgreeting, as he turned and rode alongside her, was a question. Hewanted to know what was the matter with her. He listened with his oldmanner of repression while she told him, and he made no commentwhatever until she had finished.
"You must have made him pretty sore," he said dispassionately. "Idon't think myself that you ought to stay over to the ranch alone. Whydon't you do as he says?"
"And go back to the Bar Nothing?" Jean shivered a little. "Nothingcould make me go back there! Lite, you don't understand. He acted likea crazy man; and I hadn't said anything to stir him up like that. Hewas--Lite, he scared me! I couldn't stay on the ranch with him. Icouldn't be in the same room with him."
"You can't go on staying at the Lazy A," Lite told her flatly.
"There's no other place where I'd stay."
"You could," Lite pointed out, "stay in town and go back and forth withthe rest of the bunch. It would be a lot better, any way you look atit."
"It would be a lot worse. There's my book; I wouldn't have any chanceto write on that. And there's the expense. I'm saving every nickel Ipossibly can, Lite, and you know what for. And there's the bunch--Isee enough of them during working hours. I'd go crazy if I had to livewith them. Lite, they've put me in playing leads! I'm to get ahundred dollars a week! Just think of that! And Burns says that I'llhave to go back to Los Angeles with them when they go this fall,because the contract I signed lasts for a year."
She sighed. "I rode over to tell you about it. It seemed to be goodnews, when I left home. But now, it's just a part of the black tanglethat life's made up of. Aunt Ella started things off by telling mewhat a disgrace it is for me to work in these pictures. And UncleCarl--" She shivered in spite of herself. "I just can't understandUncle Carl's going into such a rage. It was--awful."
Lite rode for some distance before he lifted his head or spoke. Thenhe looked at Jean, who was staring straight ahead and seeing nothingsave what her thoughts pictured.
He did not say a word about her going to Los Angeles.
He was the bottled-up type; the things that hit him hardest he seldommentioned, so by that rule it might be inferred that her going hithard. But his voice was normally calm, and his tone was the tone ofauthority, which Jean knew very well, and which nearly always amusedher because she firmly believed it to be utterly useless.
He said in the tone of an ultimatum: "If you're bound to stay at theranch, you've got to have somebody with you. I'll ride in and getHepsy Atwood in the morning. You're getting thin. I don't believe youtake time to cook enough to eat. You can't work on soda crackers andsardines. The old lady won't charge much to come and stay with you.I'll come over after I'm through work to-morrow and help her get thingslooking a little more like living."
"You'll do nothing of the sort." Jean looked at him mutinously. "I'mall right just as I am. I won't have her, Lite. That's settled."
"Sure, it's settled," Lite agreed, with more than his usualpertinacity. "I'll have her out here by noon, and a supply of realgrub. How are you fixed for bedding?"
"I won't have her, I tell you. You're always trying to make me dothings I won't do. Don't be silly."
"Sure not." Lite shifted in the saddle with the air of a man who ridesat perfect ease with himself and with the world. "She'll likely haveplenty of bedding of her own," he meditated, after a brief silence.
"Lite, if you haul Hepsibah out here, I'll send her back!"
"I'll haul her out," said Lite in a tone of finality, "but you won'tsend her back." He paused. "She ain't much protection, maybe," heremarked somewhat enigmatically, "but it'll beat staying alone nights.You--you can't tell who might come prowling around the place."
"What do you mean? Do you know about--" Jean caught herself on theverge of betrayal.
"You want to keep your gun handy. Just on general principles," Literemonstrated. "You can't tell; it's away off from everywhere."
"I won't have Hepsy Atwood. Haven't I enough to drive me mad, withouther?"
"Is there anybody else that you'd rather have?" Lite looked at herspeculatively.
"No, there isn't. I won't have anybody. It would be a nuisance havingsome old lady in the house gabbling and gossiping. I'm not the leastbit afraid, except,--I'm not afraid, and I like to be alone. I won'thave her, Lite."
Lite said no more about it until they reached the house, huddledlonesomely against the barren bluff, its windows staring black into thedusk. Jean did not seem to expect Lite to dismount, but he did notwait to see what she expected him to do. In his most matter-of-factmanner he dismounted and turned his horse, still saddled, into thestable with Pard. He preceded Jean up the path, and went into thekitchen ahead of her; lighted a match and found the lamp, and set itsflame to brightening the dingy room.
Jean had not done much in the way of making that part of the house moreattractive. She used the kitchen to cook in, because the stove wasthere, and the dishes. She had spread an old braided rug over thebrown stain on the floor, and she ate in her own room with the doorshut.
Without being told, Lite seemed to know all about her secret aversionto the kitchen. He took up the lamp and went now on a tour ofinspection through the house. Jean followed him, wondering a little,and thinking that this was the way that mysterious stranger came andprowled at night, except that he must have used matches to light theway, or a candle, since the lamp seemed never to be disturbed. Litewent into all the rooms and held the lamp so that its brightnesssearched out all the corners. He looked into the small, stuffyclosets. He stood in the middle of her father's room and seemed tomeditate deeply, while Jean stood in the doorway and watched himinquiringly. He came back finally to the kitchen and looked into thecupboard, as though he was taking an inventory of her supply ofprovisions.
"You might cook me some supper, Jean," he said, when he had put thelamp on the table. "I see you've got eggs and bacon. I'm prettyhungry,--for a man that had his dinner six or seven hours ago."
Jean cooked supper, and they ate together in the kitchen. It did notseem so gruesome with Lite there, and she told him some funny thingsthat had happened in her work, and mimicked Robert Grant Burns with anaccuracy of manner and tone that would have astonished that pompousperson a good deal and flattered him not at all. She almost recoveredher spirits under the stimulus of Lite's presence, and she quite forgotthat he had threatened her with Hepsibah Atwood.
But when he had wiped the dishes and had taken up his hat to go, Liteproved how tenaciously his mind could hold to an idea, and how evenJean could not quite match him for stubbornness.
"That mattress in the little bedroom looks all right," he said. "I'llpack it outside before I go, so it will have all day to-morrow out inthe sun. I'll have Hepsy bring her own bedding. Well--so long."
Jean would have sworn in perfect good faith that Lite led his horse outof the stable, mounted it, and rode away to the Bar Nothing. He didmount and ride away as far as the mouth of the coulee. But that nighthe spent in the loft over the shop, and he did not sleep five minutesduring the night. Most of the time he spent leaning against his rolledbedding, smoking and gazing at the silent house where Jean slept. Youmay interpret that as you will.
Jean did not see or hear anything more of him, until about four o'clockthe next afternoon, when he drove calmly up to the house and depositedHepsibah Atwood upon the kitchen steps. He did not wait for Jean toorder them away. He hurried the unloading, released the wagon brake,and drove off. So Jean, coming from the spring behind the house,really got her first sight of him as he went rattling down to the gate.
Jean stood and looked after him, twitched her shoulders in a mentalyielding of the point for the time being, and said "How-da-do" to theold lady.
She was not so old, as years go; fifty-five or thereabouts. And
shecould have whispered into Lite's ear without standing on her toes orasking him to bend his head. Lite was a tall man, at that. She hadgray hair that was frizzy around her brows and at the back of her neck,and she had an Irish disposition without the brogue to go with it.
The first thing she did was to find an axe and chop a lot offence-posts into firewood, as easily as Lite himself could have doneit, and in other ways proceeded to make herself very much at home. Thenext day she dipped the spring almost dry, and used up all the soap inthe house; and for three days went around with her skirts tucked up andher arms bare and the soles of her shoes soggy from wet floors. Jeankept out of her way, but she owned to herself that, after all, it wasnot unpleasant to come home tired and not have to cook a solitarysupper and eat it in silent meditation.
The third night after Hepsy's arrival, Jean awoke to hear a man'sfurtive footsteps in her father's room. This was the fifth time thatthe prowler had come in the night, and custom had dulled her fear alittle. She had not reached the point yet of getting up to see who itwas and what he wanted. It was much easier to lie perfectly still withher six-shooter gripped in her hand and wait for him to go. Beyondstealthily trying her door and finding it fastened on the inside, hehad never shown any disposition to invade her room.
To-night was as all other nights when he came and made that mysterioussearch, until he went into the little bedroom where slept HepsibahAtwood. Jean listened to the faint creaking of old boards which toldher that he was approaching Hepsy's room, and she wondered if Hepsywould hear him. Hepsy did hear him. There was a squeak of the oldbedstead that told how a hundred and seventy-two pounds of indignantwomanhood was rising to do battle.
"Who's that? Git outa here, or I'll smash you!" There was no fear buta great deal of determination in Hepsy's voice, and there was the soundof her bare feet spatting on the floor.
The man's footsteps retreated hurriedly. Jean heard the kitchen dooropen and slam shut with a shrill squeal of its rusty hinges, and thesound of a man running down the path. She heard Hepsy mutteringthreats while she followed to the door and looked out, and she heardthe muttering continue while Hepsy returned to bed.
It was very comforting. Jean tucked her gun under her pillow, laughedto herself for having shuddered under the blankets at the sound of aman so easily put to flight, and went to sleep feeling quite secure andfor the first time really glad that Hepsibah Atwood was in the house.
She listened the next morning to Hepsy's colorful account of theaffair, but she did not tell Hepsy that the man had been there before.She did not even tell her that she had heard the disturbance, and waslying with her gun in her hand ready to shoot if he came into her room.For a girl as frank and outspoken as was Jean, she had almost as greata talent as Lite for holding her tongue.