"About the way the world was made." Ward loosened his clasp a little and looked down deep into her eyes. "My world, I mean." He bent and kissed her again, gravely and very, very tenderly. "Oh, Wilhemina, you know -- " he waited, gazing down with that intent look which had a new softness behind it -- "you know there 's nothing in this world but you. As far as I 'm concerned, there is n't. There never will be."
Billy Louise reached up her hands to his shoulders and tried to give him a shake. "Is that why you 've stuck yourself in these hills for three whole months and never come near? You fibber!"
"That 's why, lady-girl. I 've been sticking here, working like one son-of-a-gun -- for you. So I could have you sooner." He lifted his bent head and looked around the little cabin like a man who has just wakened to his surroundings. "I knocked off work a little while ago, and I was going to see you. I could n't stand it any longer. And -- here you iss! "he went on, giving her shoulders a little squeeze. "A straight case of 'two souls with but a single thought,' don't you reckon?
Billy Louise, by a visible effort, brought the situation down to earth. She twisted herself free and went over to the stove and saved a frying-pan of potatoes from burning to a crisp.
"I don't know about your soul," she said, glancing back at him. "I happen to have two or three thoughts in mine. One is that I 'm half starved. The second is that you 're not acting a bit nice, under the circumstances; no perfectly polite young man makes love to a girl when she is supposedly helpless and under his protection." She stopped there to wrinkle her nose at him and twist her mouth humorously. "The third thought is that if you don't behave, I shall go straight home and never be nice to you again. And," she added, getting back of the coffee-pot -- which looked new -- "the rest of my soul is one great big blob of question-marks. If you can eat and talk at the same time, you may tell me what this frantic industry is all about. If you can't, I 'll have to wait till after dinner; not even my curiosity is going to punish my poor tummy any longer." She pulled a pan of biscuits from the oven, lifted them out one at a time with dainty little nabs because they were hot, and stole a glance now and then at Ward from under her eyebrows.
Ward stood and looked at her until the food was all on the table. He was breathing unnaturally, and his jaws were set hard together. When she pushed a box up to the table and sat down upon it, and rested her elbows on the oilcloth and looked straight at him with her chin nested in her two palms, he drew a long breath, hunched his shoulders with some mental surrender, and grinned wryly.
"So be it," he yielded, throwing his hat upon the bunk. "I kinda overplayed my hand, anyway. I most humbly ask your pardon!" He bowed farcically and took up the wash-basin from its bench just outside the door.
"You see, William Louisa," he went on quizzically, when he had seated himself opposite her and was helping himself to the potatoes, "when a young lady invades strange territory, and hides behind strange doors, and jumps out at an unsuspecting but terribly well-meaning young man, she 's apt to get a surprise. When emotions are bottled -- "
"Never mind the bottled emotions. I 'd like some potatoes, if you don't want them all. I see you have n't the faintest idea how to treat a guest. Charlie Fox would have died before he would help himself and set down the dish away out of my reach. You could stick pins into him till he howled, but you could n't make him be rude to a lady."
"I 'd sure like to, muttered Ward ambiguously and handed her every bit of food within his reach.
"You can talk and eat at the same time, I see. So tell me what you 've been doing all this while." Billy Louise spoke lightly, even flippantly, but her eyes were making love to him shyly, whether she knew it or not.
"Working," answered Ward promptly and briefly. He was thinking at the rate of a million thoughts a minute, it seemed to him, and he was afraid to let go of himself and say what he thought. One thing he knew beyond all doubt, and that was that he must be careful or he would see his air-castle blow up in small fragments and come down a hopeless ruin. He needed time to think, and Billy Louise was not giving him even a minute. So he clutched at two decisions which instinct told him might help him win to safety: He would not make love, and he would not tell Billy Louise about the gold.
"Working! Well, so have I. But working at what? Did you hire out to Junkins again? I thought you said you would n't till fall." Billy Louise was watching Ward rather closely, perhaps to see how far she might trust his recovered inscrutability. "Why don't you show some human inquisitiveness about my being here?" she asked irrelevantly, just as Ward was hastily choosing how he would answer her without saying too much.
"It would n't be polite to be inquisitive about a lady, would it?" Ward retorted, thankful for the change of subject.
"N-no -- but, then, you never bother about being just polite! Charlie Fox would -- "
"Charlie Fox would think you came to see him," Ward asserted uncharitably. "My head is n't swelled to that extent. Why did you come, anyway?"
"To see you." Billy Louise lost her nerve when she saw the light leap into his eyes. "To see whether you were dead or not," she revised hastily, "so mommie would stop worrying about you. Mommie has pestered the life out of me for the last month, thinking you might be sick or hurt or something. So -- I was riding up this way, anyway, and -- "
"I see I 'll have to ride down and prove to mommie that I 'm very much alive. I 'm sure glad to know that somebody takes an interest in me -- as if I were a real human." Ward's eyes watched furtively her face, but Billy Louise refused even to nibble at the bait.
"Why did n't you come before, then? You know mommie likes to have you."
"How about mommie's child?" Ward's look was dangerous to his good resolutions.
"Listen here, Ward." Billy Louise took refuge behind her terrible frankness. "If you make love, I won't like you half as well. Don't you know that all the time when I used to play with my pretend Ward Warren, he -- he never made love?" A dimple tried to show itself in her check and was sent about its business with a twist of her lips. "My pretend Ward was lovely; he liked me to pieces, but he never came right out and said so. He -- he skated around the subject -- " Billy Louise illustrated the skating process by drawing her forefinger in a wide circle around her cup. "He made love -- with his eyes -- and he kissed me with his -- voice -- but he never spoiled it with words."
Ward grunted a word that sounded like "dam-chump."
"Nothing of the kind!" Billy Louise flew to the defense of her "pretend." "He knew just exactly how a girl likes to be made love to. And, anyway, you 've been doing the selfsame thing yourself, Ward Warren, till just now. And -- "
"Oh, have I?"
"Yes, you have. And I might have known better than to -- to startle you. You always, eternally, do something nobody 'd ever dream of your doing. The first time, when I threw that chip, you pulled a gun on me -- " The voice of Billy Louise squeezed down to a wisp of a whisper. Her eyes were remorseful. "Oh, Ward, I did n't mean to -- to -- "
"It 's all right. I 've got it coming." It was as if a mask had dropped before Ward's features. Even his eyes looked strange and hard in that face of set muscles, though the thin, bitter lips and quivering nostrils showed that there was feeling behind it all. "I see where you 're right, William. You need n't be afraid; I won't make love again."
Billy Louise looked as though she wanted to beat something -- herself, most likely. She stared as they stare who watch from the dock while a loved one slips farther and farther away on a voyage from which there may be no return; only Billy Louise was not one to watch and do nothing else.
"Now, Ward, don't be silly." The fright in her voice was overlaid with a sharpened tenderness. "You know perfectly well I did n't mean that. You 're only proving that in the human problem you 're raised to -- Stop looking darning-needles at that coffee-pot and listen here!" Billy Louise leaned over the table and caught at his nearest hand, which was a closed fist. With her own little fingers digging persistently into the tensed muscles, she pried the fist open. "Ward, behave your
self, or I 'll go straight home!" She held his straightened fingers in her own and drew a sharp breath because they lay inert -- dead things so far as any response came to her clasp; the first and middle fingers yellowed a little from cigarettes, the nails soft and pink from much immersion in water. A tale they told, if Billy Louise had been paying attention.
"Ward, you certainly are -- the limit! You know as well as I do that that does n't make a particle of difference. If I had been a boy instead of a girl, and had bucked the world for a living, I 'd probably have done worse; and, anyway, it does n't matter!" Her voice rose as if she were growing desperate. "I -- I -- like you -- to pieces, Ward, and I 'd -- I 'd rather marry you -- than anyone else. But I don't want to think about that for a long while. I don't want to be engaged, or -- or any different than the way we 've been. It was good to be just pals. It was like my pretend Ward. I -- I always wanted him -- to love me, but I would n't play that he -- told me, Ward. Oh, don't you see?" She shut her teeth hard together, because if she had n't she would have been crying in another ten seconds.
"I see." Ward spoke dully, evenly, and he still stared at the coffee-pot with that gimlet gaze of his that made Billy Louise want to scream. "I see a whole lot that I 'd been shutting my eyes to. Why don't you feel insulted -- "
"Ward Warren, if you 're going to act like a -- a -- " I suspect that Billy Louise, in her desperation, was tempted to use a swear word, but she resisted the temptation. She got up and went around him, hesitated while she looked down at his set face, drew a long breath, and blinked back some tears of self-reproach because of the devils of memory she had unwittingly turned loose to jibe at this man.
"This is why," she said softly; leaning, she pressed her lips down upon his bitter ones and let them lie there for a dozen heart-beats.
Ward's face relaxed, and his eyes went to hers with the hungry tenderness she had seen so often there. He leaned his head against her and threw up an arm to clasp her close. He did not say a word.
"After I have kissed a man," said Billy Louise, struggling back to her old whimsical manner, "it won't be a bit polite for him to have any doubts of my feelings toward him, or my belief in himself." Her fingers tangled themselves in his hair, just where the wave was the most pronounced.
She had drawn the poison. Now she set herself to restore a perfectly normal atmosphere.
"He 's going to be just exactly the same good pal he was before," she went on, speaking softly. "And he 's going to bring some water so I can wash the dishes, and then bring Blue so I can go home, and he is n't going to say a single thing more about -- anything that matters two whoops."
Ward's clasp tightened and then grew loose. He drew a long breath and let her go.
"You do like me -- a little bit, don't you?" His eyes were like the eyes of the damned asking for water.
"I like you two little bits." Billy Louise took his face between her two palms and smiled down at him bravely, with the pure candor that was a part of her. "But I don't want us to be anything but pals; not for a long while. It 's so good, just being friends. And once we get away from that point, we can't go back to it again, ever. And I 'm sure it 's good enough to be worth while making it last as long as we can. So now -- "
"It 's going to be quite a contract, Wilhemina." Ward still looked at her with his heart in his eyes.
"Oh, no, it won't! You 've had lots of practice," Billy Louise assured him confidently and began putting the few dishes in a neat little pile. "And, anyway, you are perfectly able to handle any kind of a contract. All you need do is make up your mind. And that 's made up already. So the next thing on the programme is to bring a bucket of water. Did you notice anything different about your cabin? I thought you bragged to me about being such a good housekeeper! Why, you had n't swept the floor, even, since goodness knows when and I 've made up a bundle of your dirty shirts and things that I found under the bed, and I 'm going to take them home and let Phoebe wash them. She can do them this evening and have them ready for you to bring back to-morrow. When I was a kid and went to see Marthy and Jase, I used to promise them cookies with 'raisings' in the middle. I thought there was nothing better in the world. I was just thinking -- I 'll maybe bake you some cookies with raisings on top, to bring home. You don't seem to waste much time cooking stuff. Bacon and beans, and potatoes and sour-dough bread: that seems to be your regular bill of fare. And tomatoes for Sunday, I reckon; I saw some empty cans outside. Don't you ever feel like coming down to the ranch and getting a square meal?"
"Oh, you William the Conqueror!" Ward stood with the water bucket in his hand, and looked at her with that smile hidden just behind his lips and his eyes. "You sure sabe how to make things come your way, don't you?" He started for the door, stopped with his toes over the threshold, and looked back at her. "If I knew how to get what I want, as easily as you do," he said, "we 'd be married and keeping house before to-morrow night!" He laughed grimly at the start she gave. "As it is, you 're the doctor, William Louisa. We remain mere friends!" With that he went off to the creek.
He was gone at least four times as long as was necessary, but he came back whistling, and he did not make love to her except with his eyes.
CHAPTER X
This Pal Business
"YOU 'VE got quite a lot of hay put up, I see," Billy Louise remarked, when they were leaving.
"Sure. I told you I 've been working." Ward's tone was cheerful to the point of exuberance. He felt as though he could work day and night now, with the memory of Billy Louise's lips upon his own.
"You never put up that hay alone," she told him bluntly, "and you need n't try to make me believe you did. I know better."
"How do you know?" Ward glanced over his shoulder at the stack, then humorously at her. He recognized the futility of trying to fool Billy Louise, but he was in the mood to tease her.
"Humph! I 've helped stack hay myself, if you please. I can tell a one-man stack when I see it. Who did you get to help? Junkins?"
"No, a half-baked hobo I ran across. I had him here a month."
"Oh! Are those your horses down there? They can't be." Last April, Billy Louise had been very well informed as to Ward's resources. She was evidently trying to match her knowledge of their well-defined limitations with what she saw now of prosperity in its first stages.
"They are, though. A dandy span of mares. I got a bargain there."
Billy Louise pondered a minute. "Ward, you are n't going into debt, are you?" Her tone was anxious. "It 's so beastly hard to get out, once you 're in!"
"I don't owe anybody a red cent, William Louisa. Honest."
"Well, but -- " Billy Louise looked at him from under puckered brows.
Ward laughed oddly. "I 've been working, William. Last spring I -- hunted wolves for awhile; old ones and dens. They 'd killed a couple of calves for me, and I got out after them. I -- made good at it; the bounty counts up pretty fast, you know."
"Yes-s, it does." Billy Louise bit her lips thoughtfully, turned looked back at the haystack, at the long line of new, wire fence, and at the two heavyset mares feeding contentedly along the creek. "There must be money in wolves," she remarked evenly.
"There is. At least, I made good money hunting them." The smile was hiding behind Ward's lips again and threatening to come boldly to the surface. "They have n't bothered you any, I hope?"
"No," said Billy Louise, "they have n't. I guess they must be all up your way."
For the life of him Ward could not tell to a certainty whether there was sarcasm in her tone or whether she spoke in perfect innocence. The shrewdest of us deceive ourselves sometimes. Ward might have known he could not fool Billy Louise, who had careworn experience of the cost of ranch improvements and could figure almost the exact number of wolf-bounties it would take to pay for what he had put into his claim. Still, he was right in thinking she would not quiz him beyond a certain point. She seemed to have reached that point quite suddenly, for she did not say another word about Ward's affairs.
"What
all 's been happening in the world, anyway?" he asked, when they had exhausted some very trivial subjects. "Your world, I mean. Anything new or startling taken place?"
"Not a thing. Marthy was down last week and spent the day with us. I never saw anybody change as much as she has. She looks almost neat these days. And she can't talk about anything but Charlie and how well he 's doing. She lets him do most of the managing, I think. And he had some money left to him, this spring, and has put it into cattle. He bought quite a lot of mixed stock from Seabeck and some from Winters and Nelson, Marthy says. I passed some of his cattle coming up."
"Going to have a rival in the business, am I?" Ward laughed. "I was figuring on being the only thriving young cattle-king in this neck of the woods, myself."
"Well, Charlie 's in a fair way to beat you to it. I wish," sighed Billy Louise, "some kind person would leave me a bunch of money. Don't you? Cattle are coming up a little all the time. I 'd like to own a lot more than I do."
"Well, we -- " Ward stopped and reconsidered. "If wolfing continues to pay like it has done," he said, with a twitch of the lips, "I intend to stick my little Y6 monogram on a few more cowhides before snow flies, William. And when you 've had enough of this friend business -- "
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