The Uphill Climb

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER XIV

  The Feminine Point of View

  When Ford stepped upon the porch with the jug in his hand, he gave everyindication of having definitely made up his mind. When he glimpsedJosephine's worried face behind the lace curtain in the window, hedropped the jug lower and held it against his leg in such a way as toindicate that he hoped she could not see it, but otherwise he gave nosign of perturbation. He walked along the porch to the door of his ownroom, went in, locked the door after him, and put the jug down on achair. He could hear faint sounds of dishes being placed upon the tablein the dining-room, which was next to his own, and he knew that dinnerwas half an hour late; which was unusual in Mrs. Kate's orderly domain.Mrs. Kate was one of those excellent women whose house is alwaysimmaculate, whose meals are ever placed before one when the clockpoints to a certain hour, and whose table never lacks a salad and adessert--though how those feats are accomplished upon a cattle ranchmust ever remain a mystery. Ford was therefore justified in taking thesecond look at his watch and in holding it up to his ear, and also inlifting his eyebrows when all was done. Fifteen minutes by the watch itwas before he heard the silvery tinkle of the tea bell, which was one ofthe ties which bound Mrs. Kate to civilization, and which announced thathe might enter the dining-room.

  He went in as clean and fresh and straight-backed and quiet as ever hehad done, and when he saw that the room was empty save for Buddy,perched upon his long-legged chair with his heels hooked over the topround and a napkin tucked expectantly inside the collar of his blueblouse, he took in the situation and sat down without waiting for thewomen. The very first glance told him that Mrs. Kate had never preparedthat meal. It was, putting it bluntly, a scrappy affair hastily gatheredfrom various shelves in the pantry and hurriedly arranged haphazardupon the table.

  Buddy gazed upon the sprinkle of dishes with undisguiseddissatisfaction. "There ain't any potatoes," he announced gloomily. "Myown mamma always cooks potatoes. Josephine's the limit! I been workingto-day. I almost dug out a badger, over by the bluff. I got where Icould hear him scratching to get away, and then it was all rocks, so Icouldn't dig any more. Gee, it was hard digging! And I'm just aboutstarved, if you want to know. And there ain't any potatoes."

  "Bread and butter is fine when you're hungry," Ford suggested, andspread a slice for Buddy, somewhat inattentively, because he was alsokeeping an eye upon the kitchen door, where he had caught a fleetingglimpse of Josephine looking in at him.

  "You're putting the butter all in one place," Buddy criticised, with hisusual frankness. "I guess you're drunk, all right. If you're too drunkto spread butter, let me do it."

  "What makes you think I'm drunk?" Ford questioned, lowering his voicebecause of the person he suspected was in the kitchen.

  "Mamma and Jo was quarreling about it; that's why. And my own mammacried, and shut the door, and wouldn't let me go in. And Jo pretty nearcried too, all right. I guess she did, only not when any one waslooking. Her eyes are awful red, anyway." Buddy took great, ravenousbites of the bread and butter and eyed Ford unwinkingly.

  "What's disslepointed?" he demanded abruptly, after he had given himselfa white mustache with his glass of milk.

  "Why do you want to know?"

  "That's what my own mamma is, and that's what Jo is. Only my own mammais it about you, and Jo's it about mamma. Say, did you lick Dick? Jotold my own mamma she wisht you'd killed him. Jo's awful mad to-day. Iguess she's mad at Dick, because he ain't very much of a fighter. Didyou lick him easy? Did you paste him one in the jaw?"

  Josephine entered then with Ford's belated tea. Her eyelids were pink,as Buddy had told him, and she did not look at him while she filled hiscup.

  "Kate has a sick headache," she explained primly, "and I did the best Icould with lunch. I hope it's--"

  "It is," Ford interrupted reassuringly. "Everything is fine and dandy."

  "You didn't cook any potatoes!" Buddy charged mercilessly. "And Ford'stoo drunk to put the butter on right. I'm going to tell my dad that nexttime he goes to Oregon I'm going along. This outfit will sure go to thedevil if he stays much longer!"

  "Where did you hear that, Bud?" Josephine asked, still carefullyavoiding a glance at Ford.

  "Well, Dick said it would go to the devil. I guess," he added on his ownaccount, with an eloquent look at the table, "it's on the trail rightnow."

  Ford looked at Josephine, opened his lips to say that it might still beheaded off, and decided not to speak. There was a stubborn streak inFord Campbell. She had said some bitter things, in her anger. Perhapsshe had not entirely believed them herself, and perhaps Mrs. Kate hadnot been accurately quoted by her precocious young son; she may not havesaid that she was disappointed in Ford. They might not have believedwhatever it was Dick told them, and they might still have fullconfidence in him, Ford Campbell. Still, there was the stubborn streakwhich would not explain or defend. So he left the table, and went intohis own room without any word save a muttered excuse; and that in spiteof the fact that Josephine looked full at him, at last, and with awistfulness that moved him almost to the point of taking her in his armsand kissing away the worry--if he could.

  He went up to the table where stood the jug, looked at it, lifted it,and set it down again. Then he lifted it again and pulled the cork outwith a jerk, wondering if the sound of it had reached through the thinpartition to the ears of Josephine; he was guilty of hoping so. He putback the cork--this time carefully--walked to the outer door, turned thekey, opened the door, and closed it again with a slam. Then, with agrim set of the lips, he walked softly into the closet and pulled thedoor nearly shut.

  He knew there was a chance that Josephine, if she were interested in hismovements, would go immediately into the sitting-room, where she couldsee the path, and would know that he had not really left the house. Butshe did not, evidently. She sat long enough in the dining-room for Fordto call himself a name or two and to feel exceedingly foolish over thetrick, and to decide that it was a very childish one for a grown man toplay upon a woman. Then she pushed back her chair, came straight towardhis room, opened the door, and looked in; Ford knew, for he saw herthrough the crack he had left in the closet doorway. She stood therelooking at the jug on the table, then went up and lifted it, much asFord had done, and pulled the cork with a certain angry defiance.Perhaps, he guessed shrewdly, Josephine also felt rather foolish at whatshe was doing--and he smiled over the thought.

  Josephine turned the jug to the light, shut one eye into an adorablesquint, and peered in. Then she set the jug down and pushed the corkslowly into place; and her face was puzzled. Ford could have laughedaloud when he saw it, but instead he held his breath for fear she shoulddiscover him. She stood very still for a minute or two, staring atnothing at all; moved the jug into the exact place where it had stoodbefore, and went out of the room on her toes.

  So did Ford, for that matter, and he was in a cold terror lest sheshould look out and see him walking down the path where he shouldlogically have walked more than five minutes before. He did not dare toturn and look--until he was outside the gate; then inspiration came toaid him and he went back boldly, stepped upon the porch with no effortat silence, opened his door, and went in as one who has a right there.

  He heard the click of dishes which told that she was clearing the table,and he breathed freer. He walked across the room, waited a space, andwalked back again, and then went out with his heart in its properposition in his chest; Ford was unused to feeling his heart rise to hispalate, and the sensation was more novel than agreeable. When he wentagain down the path, there was a certain exhilaration in his step. Histhoughts arranged themselves in clear-cut sentences, as if he werespeaking, instead of those vague, almost wordless impressions which fillthe brain ordinarily.

  "She's keeping cases on that jug. She must care, or she wouldn't dothat. She's worried a whole lot; I could see that, all along. Down atthe bunk-house she called me Ford twice--and she said it meant a lot toher, whether I make good or not. I wonder--Lordy me! A man co
uld makegood, all right, and do it easy, if she cared! She doesn't know what tothink--that jug staying right up to high-water mark, like that!" Helaughed then, silently, and dwelt upon the picture she had made whileshe had stood there before the table.

  "Lord! she'd want to kill me if she knew I hid in that closet, but Ijust had a hunch--that is, if she cared anything about it. I wonder ifshe did really say she wished I'd killed Dick?

  "Anyway, I can fight it now, with her keeping cases on the quiet. Iknow I can fight it. Lordy me, I've got to fight it! I've got to makegood; that's all there is about it. Wonder what she'll think when shesees that jug don't go down any? Wonder--oh, hell! She'd never careanything about me. If she did--" His thoughts went hazy with vaguespeculation, then clarified suddenly into one hard fact, like a rockthrusting up through the lazy sweep of a windless tide. "If she didcare, I couldn't do anything. I'm married!"

  His step lost a little of its spring, then, and he went into thebunk-house with much the same expression on his face as when he had leftit an hour or so before.

  He did not see Dick that day. The other boys watched him covertly, itseemed to him, and showed a disposition to talk among themselves. Jimwas whistling cheerfully in the kitchen. He turned his head and laughedwhen Ford went in.

  "I found a dead soldier behind the sack of spuds," Jim announced, andproduced an empty bottle, mate to the one Ford had thrown into thegully. "And Dick didn't seem to have any appetite at all, and Mose isstill in Sleepytown. I guess that's all the news at this end of theline. Er--hope everything is all right at the house?"

  "Far as I could see, it was," Ford replied, with an inner sense ofevasion. "I guess we'll just let her go as she looks, Jim. Did you sayanything to the boys?"

  Jim reddened under his tan, but he laughed disarmingly. "I cannot tell alie," he confessed honestly, "and it was too good to keep to myself. I'mthe most generous fellow you ever saw, when it comes to passing along agood story that won't hurt anybody's digestion. You don't care, do you?The joke ain't on you."

  "If you'd asked me about it, I'd have said keep it under your hat.But--"

  "And that would have been a sin and a shame," argued Jim, licking afinger he had just scorched on a hot kettle-handle. "The fellows alllike a good story--and it don't sound any worse because it's on Dick.And say! I kinda got a clue to where he connected with that whisky. Waltsays he come back from the line-camp with his overcoat rolled up andtied behind the saddle--and it wasn't what you could call a hot night,either. He musta had that jug wrapped up in it. I'll bet he sent in byPeterson, the other day, for it. He was over there, I know. He's sure adeliberate kind of a cuss, isn't he? Must have had this thing allfigured out a week ago. The boys are all tickled to death at the way hegot it in the neck; they know Dick pretty well. But if you'd told me notto say anything, I'd have said he stubbed his toe on his shadow and fellall over himself, and let it go at that."

  "Lordy me! Jim, you needn't worry about it; you ought to know you can'tkeep a thing like this quiet, on a ranch. It doesn't matter much how hegot that whisky here, either; I know well enough you didn't haul it out.I'd figured it out about as Walt says.

  "Say, it looks as if you'll have to wrastle with the pots and pans tillto-morrow. The lower fence I'll ride, this afternoon; did you get cleararound the Pinnacle field?"

  "I sure did--and she's tight as a drum. Say, Mose is a good cook, buthe's a mighty punk housekeeper, if you ask me. I'm thinking of gettingto work here with a hoe!"

  So life, which had of late loomed big and bitter before the soul ofFord, slipped back into the groove of daily routine.