Part 11

“I don't know.”

“'Cause ye ought to come down some day to the Forks.”

“Yes.”

“Good morning, miss.”

“Good morning.”

Yet at the corner of the house the rascal turned and looked back at the little figure in the sunlight. He had just been physically overcome by a younger man--he had lost ten dollars--he had a wife and three children. He forgot all this. He had been captivated by Miss Mayfield!

That practical heroine sat there five minutes. At the end of that time Jeff came bounding down the hill, his curls damp with perspiration; his fresh, honest face the picture of woe, HER woe, for the letter could not be found!

“Never mind, Mr. Jeff. I wrote another and gave it to him.”

Two tears were standing on her cheeks. Jeff turned white.

“Good God, miss!”

“It's nothing. You were right, Mr. Jeff! I ought not to have walked down here alone. I'm very, very tired, and--so--so miserable.”

What woman could withstand the anguish of that honest boyish face? I fear Miss Mayfield could, for she looked at him over her handkerchief, and said: “Perhaps you had something to say to your friend, and I've sent him off.”

“Nothing,” said Jeff hurriedly; and she saw that all his other troubles had vanished at the sight of her weakness. She rose tremblingly from her seat. “I think I will go in now, but I think--I think--I must ask you to--to--carry me!”

Oh, lame and impotent conclusion!

The next moment, Jeff, pale, strong, passionate, but tender as a mother, lifted her in his arms and brought her into the sitting-room. A simultaneous ejaculation broke from Aunt Sally and Mrs. Mayfield--the possible comment of posterity on the whole episode.

“Well, Jeff, I reckoned you'd be up to suthin' like that!”

“Well, Jessie! I knew you couldn't be trusted.”

Mr. James Dodd did not return from the Forks that afternoon, to Jeff's vague uneasiness. Towards evening a messenger brought a note from him, written on the back of a printed legal form, to this effect:

DEAR SIR--Seeing as you Intend to act on the Square in regard to that little Mater I have aranged Things so that I ant got to stop with you but I'll drop in onct in a wile to keep up a show for a Drink--respy yours, J. DODD.

In this latter suggestion our legal Cerberus exhibited all three of his heads at once. One could keep faith with Miss Mayfield, one could see her “onct in a wile,” and one could drink at Jeff's expense. Innocent Jeff saw only generosity and kindness in the man he had half-choked, and a sense of remorse and shame almost outweighed the relief of his absence. “He might hev been ugly,” said Jeff. He did not know how, in this selfish world, there is very little room for gratuitous, active ugliness.

Miss Mayfield did not leave her room that afternoon. The wind was getting up, and it was growing dark when Jeff, idly sitting on his porch, hoping for her appearance, was quite astounded at the apparition of Yuba Bill as a pedestrian, dusty and thirsty, making for his usual refreshment. Jeff brought out the bottle, but could not refrain from mixing his verbal astonishment with the conventional cocktail. Bill, partaking of his liquor and becoming once more a speaking animal, slowly drew off his heavy, baggy driving gloves. No one had ever seen Bill without them--he was currently believed to sleep in them--and when he laid them on the counter they still retained the grip of his hand, which gave them an entertaining likeness to two plethoric and overfed spiders.

“Ef I concluded to pass over my lines to a friend and take a pasear up yer this evening,” said Bill, eying Jeff sharply, “I don't know ez thar's any law agin it! Onless yer keepin' a private branch o' the Occidental Ho-tel, and on'y take in fash'n'ble fammerlies!”

Jeff, with a rising color, protested against such a supposition.

“Because ef ye ARE,” said Bill, lifting his voice, and crushing one of the overgrown spiders with his fist, “I've got a word or two to say to the son of Joe Briggs of Tuolumne. Yes, sir! Joe Briggs--yer father--ez blew his brains out for want of a man ez could stand up and say a word to him at the right time.”

“Bill,” said Jeff, in a low, resolute tone--that tone yielded up only from the smitten chords of despair and desperation--“thar's a sick woman in the house. I'll listen to anything you've got to say if you'll say it quietly. But you must and SHALL speak low.”

Real men quickly recognize real men the world over; it is only your shams who fence and spar. Bill, taking in the voice of the speaker more than his words, dropped his own.

“I said I had a kepple of words to say to ye. Thar isn't any time in the last fower months--ever since ye took stock in this old shanty, for the matter o' that--that I couldn't hev said them to ye. I've knowed all your doin's. I've knowed all your debts, 'spesh'ly that ye owe that sneakin' hound Parker; and thar isn't a time that I couldn't and wouldn't hev chipped in and paid 'em for ye--for your father's sake--ef I'd allowed it to be the square thing for ye. But I know ye, Jeff. I know what's in your BLOOD. I knew your father--allus dreamin', hopin,' waitin'; I know YOU, Jeff, dreamin', hopin', waitin' till the end. And I stood by, givin' you a free rein, and let it come!”

Jeff buried his face in his hands.