"Pete," slowly, "there are some questions I want to ask you."

"Thought it was about time for the pumps to start. What do you want to know?"

Kate's heart leaped. She endeavored to steady her voice, to keep out of her face the eagerness with which she trembled, as she replied:

"I want to know who my father is--where he is, if he's alive. Oh, Pete!"

Her hands came together beseechingly, "Tell me that--I beg of you tell me about him."

Satisfaction glistened in his eyes.

"I thought that would be it! The only civil words I ever got out of you when you was a kid was when you hoped to make me loosen up and talk to you about him." Then he asked again with an expression she could not interpret, "You're sure you'd ruther I give up that than anything else on earth?"

"Yes, Pete!" she gulped. "It means so much to me."

"I guess yes. The ground wouldn't be good enough for your feet if the 'Old Man' had you."

"Is that the truth? He'd care for me like that? Oh, Pete!"

"Care? He'd worship you. Them Prouty folks would bite themselves if they could see your Old Man," he chuckled faintly.

"He is still living, then? Oh, Pete!" She extended two pleading hands impulsively, "Don't make me wait!"

Something other than fever glittered in his eyes, and there was more than satisfaction in his voice when he said:

"That's somethin' like it--somethin'--not quite! It's sweeter nor music to hear you beg. But, d.a.m.n you, you ain't humble enough yet!"

"What do you want me to do?" she cried. "I'll--I'll get down on my knees, if only you'll tell me what I want to know!"

"That's it!" in shrill excitement. "Get down on your knees. I ain't forgot that you called me a 'n.i.g.g.e.r' once, and hit me with a quirt.

It'll kinda wipe it out to see you crawlin' to Pete, that you always treated like dirt. Git down on your knees and beg, if you want me to talk!"

She sank to the floor of the wagon without a word.

He looked at her queerly as she knelt. There was intense gratification in his voice, "You do want to know, when you'll swaller that."

"Yes, Pete," humbly, "I do."

His thin hands lay inert upon the soogan. His head turned weakly while he kept his eyes upon her as though enjoying the situation to the utmost. There was a silence in which he seemed both to be gathering strength and considering how to begin.

"He's the kind of a feller--your Old Man--that don't have to holler his head off to git himself heard. They'd listen in any man's country when he talks. He don't talk much, but what he says goes--the kind that can always finish what he starts.

"He's six feet, and there wasn't any man in the country could handle him in those days. I've seen him throw a three-year-ol' steer like you'd slap over a kid. He was easy and quiet, commonly, like one of them still deep rivers that slip along peaceful till somethin' gits in its way. The patientest feller I ever see with dumb brutes, and a patience that wasn't hardly human, even with folks. But when he did break loose--well, them that thought he was 'harmless' and went too far on account of it never made the same mistake twice."

He continued with evident relish:

"That's where he fooled her--Isabelle--she didn't read him right. She thought he was 'soft' because she had her way with him."

"They were married, Pete?"

"Married, right enough--he never thought any other way about her. She was all-the-same angel to him," he grinned. "She never was straight--we all knowed that but him, but she was slick, and she was swingin' her throwrope for him in about a week after they brought her in from the Middle West to teach the school in that district. Anybody that said a word ag'in' her to him would have gone to the hospital. So he went ahead and married her--while she laffed at him to his own hired men.

"If he'd worked her over with a quirt about onct a month, instead of wonderin' what he could do for her next, he might have had her yet.

"If he made a door-mat out of hisself before, it was worse after you come. He was the greatest hand for little things that ever I see--colts, kittens, calves, puppies and a baby! He walked the floor carrying you on a pillow for fear you'd break.

"It was too slow for Isabelle--that life--and only one man to fetch and carry for her. We used to make bets among ourselves as to how long 'twould last, and the short-time man won out. She liked 'em 'tough,' she said--no white-collared gents for her; and she got what she was lookin'

for when she throwed in with Freighter Sam that hauled supplies from the railroad to the ranch.

"They skipped out between daylight and dark and made as clean a getaway as ever was pulled off. But where she made her big mistake was takin'

you along. If it hadn't been for that, he wouldn't a-walked a half mile to bring her back. Twenty-four hours put ten years on him, and he never squeaked. But if he'd caught that freighter he'd took him by the heels and swung him like you'd knock a rabbit's brains out agin a post.

"He went over the country with a fine-tooth comb, hopin' to git you back. A couple of times he almost closed in on 'em, but they managed to give him the slip and headed north while mostly he hunted south and west.

"You was well growed before I run into 'em. Freighter Sam used to bang her head agin the door jamb about twict a week, and they got along good until he fell for a hasher in an eatin' house and quit Isabelle cold.

She hit bottom pretty p.r.o.nto after that." Mullendore stopped.

"But my father, Pete;--tell me more about him!"

He eyed her with a quizzical and appraising look before he replied:

"You favor the Old Man as much as if you was made out of the mud that was left when they was done workin' on him. Your eyes, your mouth, your chin--the way you walk and stand--the easy style you set a horse. As the sayin' is, 'You're the spit out of his mouth.' G.o.d A'mighty! Wouldn't he spile you if you was with him!"

"But you don't tell me where he is, Pete!"

He ignored the interruption and said with slow malice, watching her face:

"I've often thought what a shame it was that you two never got together--a hankerin' for each other so."

Something in his tone struck terror to her heart.

"But you're going to tell me, Pete? You are! You are!" She crawled closer to the bunk, on her knees.

A pa.s.sionate satisfaction glittered in his eyes.

"Yes! it's a plumb pity that you and him never happened to meet up."

There was cold cruelty in his tantalizing voice.

"You mean--you mean--" she stammered with colorless lips--"that--that you're only tormenting me again--you don't intend--"

"That depends." His pupils dilated, his white teeth gleamed.

"But you promised, Pete! Haven't you any honor--not a speck?"

"I git what I want any way I can git it. That's me--Mullendore."

"Tell me what you want! Is it money, Pete?"