"Me-Smith"

THE EMPTY CHAIR-2

But the mere presence of this new-comer seemed to fill her with resentment, making of her an irrepressible young shrew who gloated openly in his angry confusion.

“Speakin’ of Yellow-backs,” said Meeteetse, with the candid intent of being tactful, “reminds me of a song a pardner of mine wrote up about ’em once. Comical? T’—t’—t’—!” He wagged his head as if he had no words in which to describe its incomparable humor. “He had another song that was a reg’lar tear-starter: ‘Whar the Silver Colorady Wends Its Way.’ Ever hear it? It’s about a feller that buried his wife by the silver Colorady, and turned outlaw. This pardner of mine used to beller every time he sung it. He cried like he was a Mormon, and he hadn’t no more wife than a jack rabbit.”

“Some songs is touchin’,” agreed Arkansaw Red.

“This was,” declared Meeteetse. “How she faded day by day, till a pale, white corp’ she lay! If I hadn’t got this cold on me——”

“I hate to see you sufferin’, Meeteetse, but if it keeps you from warblin’——”

He ignored Susie’s implication, and went on serenely:

“Looks like it’s settled on me for life, and it all comes of tryin’ not to be a hog.”

“I hope it’ll be a lesson to you,” said Susie soberly.

“That there Bar C cowpuncher, Babe, comes over the other night, and, the bunk-house bein’ full, I offers him half my blankets. I never put in such a night since I froze to death on South Pass. For fair, I’d ruther sleep with a two-year-ole steer—couldn’t kick no worse than that Babe. Why them blankets was in the air more’n half the time, with him pullin’ his way, and me snatchin’ of ’em back. Finally I gits a corner of a soogan in my teeth, and that way I manages a little sleep. I vows I’d ruther be a hog and git a night’s rest than take in such a turrible bed-feller as him.”

Apropos of the restless Babe, one James Padden observed: “They say he’s licked more’n half the Bar C outfit.”

“Lick ’em!” exclaimed Meeteetse, with enthusiasm. “Why, he could eat ’em! He jest tapped me an easy one and nigh busted my jaw. If he ever reely hit you with that fist of his’n, it ud sink in up to the elbow. I ast him once: ’Babe,’ I says, ‘how big are you anyhow?’ ‘Big?’ he says surprised. ‘I ain’t big. I’m the runt of the family. Pa was thirty-two inches between the eyes, and they fed him with a shovel.’”

Susie giggled at some thought, and then inquired:

“Did anybody ever see that horse he’s huntin’? He says it’s a two-year-old filly that he thinks the world of. It’s brown, with a star in its forehead, and one hip is knocked down. He never hunts anywhere except on that road past the school-house, and he stops at the pump each way—goin’ and comin’. I never saw anybody with such a thirst. He looks in the window while he’s drinkin’, and swallows a gallon of water at a time, and don’t know it.”

“Love is a turrible disease.” Tubbs spoke with the emphasis of conviction. “It’s worse’n lump-jaw er blackleg. It’s dum nigh as bad as glanders. It’s ketchin’, too, and I holds that anybody that’s got it bad ought to be dipped and quarantined. I knowed a feller over in Judith Basin what suffered agonies with it for two months, then shot hisself. There was seven of ’em tyin’ their horses to the same Schoolmarm’s hitchin’-post.”

“Take a long-geared Schoolmarm in a woolly Tam-o’-shanter, and she’s a reg’lar storm-centre,” vouchsafed the husky voice of “Banjo” Johnson.

“They is! They is!” declared Meeteetse, with more feeling than the occasion seemed to warrant.

The knob of a door adjoining the dining-room turned, and the grub-liners straightened in their chairs. Susie’s eyes danced with mischief as she leaned toward Meeteetse and asked innocently:

“They is what?”

But with the opening of the door the voluble Meeteetse seemed to be stricken dumb.

As a young woman came out, Smith stared, and instinctively McArthur half rose from his chair. Believing his employer contemplated flight, Tubbs laid a restraining hand upon his coat-tail, while inadvertently he turned his knife in his mouth with painful results.

The young woman who seated herself in one of the two unoccupied chairs was not of the far West. Her complexion alone testified to this fact, for the fineness and whiteness of it were conspicuous in a country where the winter’s wind and burning suns of summer tan the skins of men and women alike until they resemble leather in color and in texture. Had this young woman possessed no other good feature, her markedly fine complexion alone would have saved her from plainness. But her thick brown hair, glossy, and growing prettily about her temples, was equally attractive to the men who had been used to seeing only the straight, black hair of the Indian women, and Susie’s sun-bleached pigtail, which, as Meeteetse took frequent occasion to remind her, looked like a hair-cinch. Her eyes, set rather too far apart for beauty, were round, with pupils which dilated until they all but covered the blue iris; the eyes of an emotional nature, an imaginative mind. Her other features, though delicate, were not exceptional, but the tout ensemble was such that her looks would have been considered above the average even in a country where pretty girls were plentiful. In her present surroundings, and by contrast with the womenfolk about her, she was regarded as the most beautiful of her s*x. Her manner, reserved to the point of stiffness, and paralyzing, as it did, the glibbest masculine tongue among them, was also looked upon as the acme of perfection and all that was desirable in young ladyhood; each individual humbly admitting that while he never before had met a real lady, he knew one when he saw her.

The young woman returned McArthur’s bow with a friendly smile, his action having at once placed him as being “different.” Noting the fact, the grub-liners resolved not to be outdone in future in a mere matter of bows.

While nearly every arm was outstretched with an offer of food, Susie leaned forward and whispered ostentatiously behind her hand to Smith:

“Don’t you make any cracks. That’s the Schoolmarm.”

“I’ve been around the world some,” Smith replied curtly.

“The south side of Billings ain’t the world.”

It was only a random shot, as she did not know Billings or any other town save by hearsay, but it made a bull’s-eye. Susie knew it by the startled look which she surprised from him, and Smith could have throttled her as she snickered.

“Mister McArthur and Mister Tubbs, I’ll make you acquainted with Miss Marshall.”

With elaborate formality of tone and manner, Susie pointed at each individual with her fork while mentioning them by name.

“Miss Marshall,” McArthur murmured, again half rising.

“Much obliged to meet you,” said Tubbs heartily as, bowing in imitation of his employer, he caught the edge of his plate on the band of his trousers and upset it.

Everybody stopped eating during this important ceremony, and now all looked at Smith to see what form his acknowledgment of the coveted introduction to the Schoolmarm would take.

Smith in turn looked expectantly at Susie, who met his eyes with a mocking grin.

“Anything I can reach for you, Mister Smith?” she inquired. “Looks like you’re waitin’ for something.”

Smith’s face and the red table-cloth were much the same shade as he looked annihilation at the little half-breed imp.

Each time that Dora Marshall raised her eyes, they met those of Smith. There was nothing of impertinence in his stare; it was more of awe—a kind of fascinated wonder—and she found herself speculating as to who and what he was. He was not a regular “grub-liner,” she was sure of that, for he was as different in his way as McArthur. He had a personality, not exactly pleasant, but unique. Though he was not uncommonly tall, his shoulders were thick and broad, giving the impression of great strength. His jaw was square, but it evidenced brutality rather than determination. His nose, in contrast to the intelligence denoted by his high, broad forehead, was mediocre, inconsequential, the kind of a nose seldom seen on the person who achieves. The two features were those of the man who conceives big things, yet lacks the force to execute them.

His eyes were unpleasantly bloodshot, but whether from drink or the alkali dust of the desert, it was impossible to determine; and when Susie prodded him they had in them all the vicious meanness of an outlaw bronco. His expression then held nothing but sullen vindictiveness, while every trait of a surly nature was suggested by his voice and manner.

During the Schoolmarm’s covert study of him, he laughed unexpectedly at one of Meeteetse Ed’s sallies. The effect was little short of marvellous; it completely transformed him. An unlooked-for dimple deepened in one cheek, his eyes sparkled, his entire countenance radiated for a moment a kind of boyish good-nature which was indescribably winning. In the brief space, whatever virtues he possessed were as vividly depicted upon his face as were his unpleasant characteristics when he was displeased. So marked, indeed, was his changed expression, that Susie burst out with her usual candor as she eyed him:

“Mister, you ought to laugh all the time.”

Contributing but little toward the conversation, and that little chiefly in the nature of flings at Susie, Smith was yet the dominant figure at the table. While he antagonized, he interested, and although his insolence was no match for Susie’s self-assured impudence, he still impressed his individuality upon every person present.

He was studied by other eyes than Dora’s and Susie’s. Not one of the looks which he had given the former had escaped the Indian woman. With the Schoolmarm’s coming, she had seen herself ignored, and her face had grown as sullen as Smith’s own, while the smouldering glow in her dark eyes betrayed jealous resentment.

“Have a cookie?” urged Susie hospitably, thrusting a plate toward Tubbs. “Ling makes these ’specially for White Antelope.”

“No, thanks, I’ve et hearty,” declared Tubbs, while McArthur shuddered. “I’ve had thousands.”

“Why, where is White Antelope?” Susie looked in surprise at the vacant chair, and asked the question of her mother.

Involuntarily Smith’s eyes and those of the Indian woman met. He read correctly all that they contained, but he did not remove his own until her eyelids slowly dropped, and with a peculiar doggedness she drawled:

“He go way for l’il visit; ’bout two, t’ree sleeps maybe.”