The Claim Jumpers. Stewart Edward White
hill. Bennington turned to follow her, although the action was entirely mechanical, and he had no definite idea in doing so.
"Don't you dare, sir!" she cried.
So he did not dare.
This vexed her for a moment. Then, having gone quite out of sight, she sank down and laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks.
"I didn't think he knew enough!" she said, with a final hysterical chuckle.
This first impression of the Mountain Flower, Bennington would have been willing to acknowledge, was quite complicated enough, but he was destined to further surprises.
When he returned to the Holy Smoke camp he found Old Mizzou in earnest conversation with a peculiar-looking stranger, whose hand he was promptly requested to shake.
The stranger was a tall, scraggly individual, dressed in the usual flannel shirt and blue jeans, the latter tucked into rusty cowhide boots. Bennington was interested in him because he was so phenomenally ugly. From the collar of his shirt projected a lean, sinewy neck, on which the too-abundant skin rolled and wrinkled in a dark red, wind-roughened manner particularly disagreeable to behold. The neck supported a small head. The face was wizened and tanned to a dark mahogany colour. It was ornamented with a grizzled goatee.
The man smoked a stub pipe. His remarks were emphasized by the gestures of a huge and gnarled pair of hands.
"Mr. Lawton is from Old Mizzou, too, afore he moved to Illinoy," commented Davidson. One became aware, from the loving tones in which he pronounced the two words, whence he derived his sobriquet.
Lawton expressed the opinion that Chillicothe, of that State, was the finest town on top of earth.
Bennington presumed it might be, and then opportunely bethought him of a bottle of Canadian Club, which, among other necessary articles, he had brought with him from New York. This he produced. The old Missourians brightened; Davidson went into the cabin after glasses and a corkscrew. He found the corkscrew all right, but apparently had some difficulty in regard to the glasses. They could hear him calling vociferously for Mrs. Arthur. Mrs. Arthur had gone to the spring for water. In a few moments Old Mizzou appeared in the doorway exceedingly red of face.
"Consarn them women folks!" he grumbled, depositing the tin cups on the porch. "They locks up an' conceals things most damnable. Ain't a tumbler in th' place."
"These yar is all right," assured Lawton consolingly, picking up one of the cups and examining the bottom of it with great care.
"I reckon they'll hold the likker, anyhow," agreed Davidson.
They passed the bottle politely to de Laney, and the latter helped himself. For his part, he was glad the tin cups had been necessary, for it enabled him to conceal the smallness of his dose. Lawton filled his own up to the brim; Davidson followed suit.
"Here's how!" observed the latter, and the two old turtlebacks drank the raw whisky down, near a half pint of it, as though it had been so much milk.
Bennington fairly gasped with astonishment. "Don't you ever take any water?" he asked.
They turned slowly. Old Mizzou looked him in the eye with glimmering reproach.
"Not, if th' whisky's good, sonny," said he impressively.
"Wall," commented Lawton, after a pause, "that is a good drink. Reckon I must be goin'."
"Stay t' grub!" urged Old Mizzou heartily.
"Folks waitin'. Remember!"
They looked at Bennington and chuckled a little, to that young man's discomfort.
"Lawton's a damn fine fella'," said Old Mizzou with emphasis. Bennington thought, with a shudder, of the loose-skinned, turkey-red neck, and was silent.
After supper Bennington and Old Mizzou played cribbage by the light of a kerosene lamp.
"While I was hunting claims this afternoon," said the Easterner suddenly, "I ran across a mighty pretty girl."
"Yas?" observed Old Mizzou with indifference. "What fer a gal was it?"
"She didn't look as if she belonged around here. She was a slender girl, very pretty, with a pink dress on."
"Ain't no female strangers yar-abouts. Blue eyes?"
"Yes."
"An' ha'r that sometimes looks black an' sometimes yaller-brown?"
"Yes, that's the one all right. Who is she?"
"Oh, that!" said Old Mizzou with slight interest, "that's Bill Lawton's girl. Live's down th' gulch. He's th' fella' that was yar afore grub," he explained.
For a full minute Bennington stared at the cards in his hand. The patriarch became impatient.
"Yore play, sonny," he suggested.
"I don't believe you know the one I mean," returned Bennington slowly. "She's a girl with a little mouth and a nose that is tipped up just a trifle----"
"Snub!" interrupted Old Mizzou, with some impatience. "Yas, I knows. Same critter. Only one like her in th' Hills. Sasshays all over th' scenery, an' don't do nothin' but sit on rocks."
"So she's the daughter of that man!" said Bennington, still more slowly.
"Wall, so Mis' Lawton sez," chuckled Mizzou.
That night Bennington lay awake for some time. He had discovered the Mountain Flower; the story-book West was complete at last. But he had offended his discovery. What was the etiquette in such a case? Back East he would have felt called upon to apologize for being rude. Then, at the thought of apologizing to a daughter of that turkey-necked old whisky-guzzler he had to laugh.
CHAPTER IV
THE SUN FAIRY
The next afternoon, after the day's writing and prospecting were finished, Bennington resolved to go deer hunting. He had skipped thirteen chapters of his work to describe the heroine, Rhoda. She had wonderful eyes, and was, I believe, dressed in a garment whose colour was pink.
"Keep yore moccasins greased," Old Mizzou advised at parting; by which he meant that the young man was to step softly.
This he found to be difficult. His course lay along the top of the ridge where the obstructions were many. There were outcrops, boulders, ravines, broken twigs, old leaves, and dikes, all of which had to be surmounted or avoided. They were all aggravating, but the dikes possessed some intellectual interest which the others lacked.
A dike, be it understood, is a hole in the earth made visible. That is to say, in old days, when mountains were much loftier than they are now, various agencies brought it to pass that they split and cracked and yawned down to the innermost cores of their being in such hideous fashion that chasms and holes of great depth and perpendicularity were opened in them. Thereupon the interior fires were released, and these, vomiting up a vast supply of molten material, filled said chasms and holes to the very brim. The molten material cooled into fire-hardened rock. The rains descended and the snows melted. Under their erosive influence the original mountains were cut down somewhat, but the erstwhile molten material, being, as we have said, fire-hardened, wasted very little, or not at all, and, as a consequence, stands forth above its present surroundings in exact mould of the ancient cracks or holes.
Now, some dikes are long and narrow, others are short and wide, and still others are nearly round. All, however, are highest points, and, head and shoulders above the trees, look abroad over the land.
When Bennington came to one of