There was no anger in his voice, not even protest. It was a simple statement of denial that at the same time had no resistance in it.

"Well, don't you be cruel," Eve exclaimed shortly, and her eyes turned once more in the direction of Peter Blunt's hut.

Her pretty face was very thoughtful. Her sun-tanned cheeks, her tall, rounded body were the picture of health. She looked as fresh and wholesome as any wild prairie flower with her rich coloring of almost tropical splendor. She was neatly dressed, more after town fashion than in the method of such places as Barnriff, and her expressed reason for thus differentiating from her fellow villagers was a matter of mild advertis.e.m.e.nt. She made her living as a dressmaker. She was Barnriff's leading and only _modiste_.

The boy at her side continued his amus.e.m.e.nt at the puppy's expense. He held it in his two hands and squeezed its little body until the poor creature gasped and retched. Then he swung it to and fro by its diminutive tail. Then he threw it up in the air, making it turn a somersault, and catching it again clumsily.

All this he did in a mild, emotionless manner. There was no boyish interest or amus.e.m.e.nt in it. Just a calm, serious immobility that gave one the impression of a painting by one of the old European masters.

Elia was Eve Marsham's crippled brother. He was seven years younger than she, and was just about to turn sixteen. In reality he was more than a cripple. He was a general deformity, a deformity that somehow even reached his brain. By this it must not be imagined that he was an idiot, or lacking in intelligence in any way, but he had some curious mental twists that marked him as something out of the normal. His chief peculiarity lay in his dread of pain to himself. An ache, a trifling bruise, a mere scratch upon himself, would hurl him into a paroxysm of terror which frequently terminated in a fit, or, at least, convulsions of a serious nature. This drove the girl, who was his only living relative, to great pains in her care of him, which, combined with an almost maternal love for him, kept her on a rack of apprehension for his well-being.

He had another strange side to his character, and one of which everybody but Eve was aware. He possessed a morbid love for horror, for the sufferings of others. He had been known to sit for hours with a sick man in the village who was suffering agonies of rheumatism, for the mere delight of drawing from him details of the pains he was enduring, and reveling in the horror of the description with ghoulish delight.

When Restless, the carpenter, broke his leg the boy was always around.

And when the wretched man groaned while they set it, his face was a picture of rapt fascination. To Eve his visits on such occasions were a sign of his sympathetic nature, and she encouraged him because she did not know the real meaning of them. But there were other things she did not know. He used to pay weekly visits to Gay's slaughter yard on killing day, and reveled in the cruel task of skinning and cutting up the carcase of the slaughtered beast. If a fight between two men occurred in the village Elia's instinct led him unerringly to it. It was a curious psychological fact that the pains and sufferings which, for himself, he dreaded with an almost insane abhorrence, he loved and desired in others.

He was a quaint figure, a figure to draw sympathy and pity from the hardiest. He was precisely four feet high. One leg was shorter than the other, and the hip was drawn up in a corresponding manner. His chest was sunken, and his back was hunched, and he carried his head bent sideways on his shoulders, in the inquiring att.i.tude one a.s.sociates with a bird.

He was his sister's sole charge, left to her, when much younger, by their dying mother. And the girl lavished on him all the wealth of a good woman's sympathy and love. She saw nothing of his faults. She saw only his deplorable physical condition, and his perfect angel-face.

His skin and complexion were so transparent that one could almost have counted the veins beneath the surface; the sun had no power to burn that face to the russet which was the general complexion among prairie folk. His mouth had the innocence of a babe's, and formed a perfect Cupid's bow, such as a girl might well be proud of. His eyes were large, inquiring and full of intelligence. His nose might have been chiseled by an old Greek sculptor, while his hair, long and wavy, was of the texture and color of raw silk.

He was certainly the idol of Eve's heart. In him she could see no wrong, no vice. She cherished him, and served him, and worked for him.

He was her life. And, as is only natural, he had learned to claim as his right all that which out of her boundless affection it was her joy to bestow.

Suddenly the yelping of the pup brought Eve round on him again. He was once more holding it aloft by its tail. The girl darted to its rescue, and, instantly, Elia released his hold, and the poor creature fell with a squelching sound upon the ground. She gave a little scream, but the boy only looked on in silent fascination. Fortunately the poor pup was only badly shaken and hastily crawled away to safety. Elia was for recovering it, but Eve promptly vetoed his design.

"Certainly not, you cruel boy," she said sharply. "You remain where you are. You can tell me about the chicken killing down at Restless's."

In the interest of the subject on which Eve desired information Elia forgot all about the pup. He offered no protest nor made the least demur, but forthwith began his story.

"Sure I will," he said, with a curious, uncanny laugh. "Old Ma Restless is just raving her fat head off. I was around this morning and heard her. Gee! She was sayin' things. She was cussin' and cussin'

like mad. So I jest turned in the yard to see. It was just as funny as a circus. She stood there, her fat sides all of a wabble, an' a reg'lar waterfall pourin' out of her eyes. He! He! But what made me laff most was to see those checkens around her on the ground. There was ten of 'em lying around, and somebody had choppened off all their heads. Say, the blood was tricklin', an'--well, there, you never did see such a mess. It was real comic, an' I--well, to see her wringin'

her fat hands, and cussin'. Gee! I wonder she wasn't struck for it, an' her a woman an' all."

He laughed silently, while his sister stared at him in amazement.

Finally she checked his amus.e.m.e.nt sharply.

"Yes? Well?"

"Well, then she see me, an' she turned on me like a wildcat, an' I was 'most scairt to death. She said, 'What you doin' here, you imp o'

Satan? Who's done this? Tell me! Tell me an' I'll lay for 'em! I'll shoot 'em down like vermin.' I knew she wasn't really talkin' to me, so then I wasn't scairt. She was jest blowin' off steam. Then I got around an' looked close at 'em--the checkens, I mean--and I see just where the knife had cut their necks off. It was an elegant way of killing 'em, and say, how they must have flapped around after they'd got clear of their silly heads." He laughed gleefully again. "I looked up after that and see her watchin' me. Guess her eyes was kind of funny lookin', so I said, 'You don't need to take on, mam,' I said.

'They'll make elegant roasts, an' you can get busy and hatch out some more.' And somehow she got quiet then, and I watched her gather them checkens up, an' take 'em into the house. Then when she came out an'

see me again, she says, 'Light you right out o' here, you imp o'

Satan! I fair hates the sight o' you.' So I lit out. Say, Eve," he added, after a reflective pause, "why does folks all hate me so much?"

The girl sighed and shook her head. Then she came over to him, and, bending down, kissed his fair waving hair.

"Never mind, dear. I don't hate you," she said. "Perhaps it is you offend folks somehow. You know you do manage to upset folks at times.

You seem to say--say queer things to them, and get them mad." She smiled down upon the boy a little wistfully. She knew her brother was disliked by most in the village, and it pained her terribly that it should be so. They tried to be outwardly kind to him, but she always felt that it was solely for her sake and never for his. As Elia had never spoken of it before, she had lived in the hope that he did not understand their dislike. However, it was as well that he should know. If he realized it now, as he grew older he might endeavor to earn their good-will in spite of present prejudice.

"Guess it must be, sis. You see I don't kind of mean to say things,"

he said almost regretfully. "Only when they're in my head they must come out, or--or I think my head would jest bust," he finished up naively.

The girl was still smiling, and one arm stole round the boy's hunched shoulders.

"Of course you can't help saying those things you know to be true----"

"But they most generally ain't true."

The innocent, inquiring eyes looked straight up into hers.

"No," he went on positively, "they generally ain't. I don't think my head would bust keepin' in the truth. Now, yesterday, Will Henderson was down at the saloon before he came up to see you. He came and sort of spoke nice to me. I know he hates me, and--and I hate him worse'n poison. Well, he spoke nice to me, as I said, an' I wanted to spit at him for it. And I jest set to and tho't and tho't how I could hurt him. And so I said, right out before all the boys, 'Wot for do you allus come hangin' around our shack? Eve's most sick to death with you,' I said; 'it isn't as if she ast you to get around, it's just you b.u.t.tin' in. If you was Jim Thorpe now----'"

"You never said all that, Elia," cried Eve, sternly. All her woman's pride was outraged, and she felt her fingers itching to box the boy's ears.

"I did sure," Elia went on, in that sober tone of decided self-satisfaction. "And I said a heap more. And didn't the boys jest laff. Will went red as a beet, and the boys laffed more. And I was real glad. I hate Will! Say, he was up here last night. Wot for? He was up here from six to nigh nine. Say, sis, I wish you wouldn't have him around."

Eve did not respond. She was staring out at the rampart of hills beyond, where Will worked. She was thinking of Will, thinking of--but the boy was insistent.

"Say, I'd have been real glad if it had been Jim Thorpe. Only he don't come so often, does he? I like him. Say, Jim's allus good to me. I don't never seem to want to hurt him. No, sure. Jim's good. But Will---- Say, sis, Will's a bad lot; he is certain. I know. He's never done nuthing bad, I know, but I can see it in his face, his eyes. It's in his head, too. Do you know I can allus tell when bad's in folks'

heads. Now, there's Smallbones. He's a devil. You'll see it, too, some day. Then there's Peter Blunt. Now Peter's that good he'd break his neck if he thought it 'ud help folks. But Will----"

"Elia," Eve was bending over the boy's crooked form. Her cheek was resting on his silky hair. She could not face those bland inquiring eyes. "You mustn't say anything against Will. I like him. He's not a bad man--really he isn't, and you mustn't say he is. Will is just a dear, foolish Irish boy, and when once he has settled down will be--you wait----"

The boy abruptly wriggled out of his sister's embrace. His eyes sought hers so that she could no longer avoid them.

"I won't wait for anything to do with Will Henderson--if that's what you mean. I tell you he's no good. I hate him! I hate him! And--and I hope some one'll kill all the checkens he's left in your care down at that old shack of his." He scrambled to his feet and hobbled away, vanishing round the corner of the house in a fury of fierce resentment.

He had been roused to one of his dreaded fits of pa.s.sion, and Eve was alarmed. In a fever of apprehension she was about to follow him up and soothe him, when she saw a horseman galloping toward the house. The figure was unmistakable, besides she knew the horse's gait and color.

It was Jim Thorpe, riding in from the AZ ranch.

In a few moments he drew rein at the gate of her vegetable patch. He flung the reins over his horse's head and removed the bit from its mouth. Then he let it wander grazing on the tawny gra.s.s of the market-place.

Eve waited for him to come up the garden path, and for the moment the boy was forgotten. She welcomed him with the cordiality of old friendship. There was genuine pleasure in her smile, there was hearty welcome in her eyes, and in the soft, warm grip of her strong young hand, but that was all. There was no shyness, no avoiding the honest devotion in his look. The radiant hope shining in his clear, dark eyes was not for her understanding. The unusual care in his dress, the neatly polished boots under his leather chaps, the creamy whiteness of his cotton shirt, the store creases of the new silk handkerchief about his neck, none of these things struck her as being anything out of the ordinary.

And he, blind soul, took courage from the warmth of her welcome. His heart beat high with a hope which no ordinary mundane affairs could have inspired. All the ill-fate behind him was wiped off the slate.

The world shone radiant before eyes, which, at such times, are mercifully blinded to realities. An Almighty Providence sees that every man shall live to the full such moments as were his just then.

It is in the great balance of things. The greater the joy, the harder---- But what matters the other side of the picture!

"Eve," he exclaimed, "I was hoping to find you--not busy. I've ridden right in to yarn with you--'bout things. Say, maybe you've got five minutes?"

"I've always got five minutes for you, Jim," the girl responded warmly. "Sit right down here on this seat, and get--going. How's things with the 'AZ's'?"

"Bully! Dan McLagan's getting big notions of doing things; he's heaping up the dollars in plenty. And I'm glad, because with him doing well I'm doing well. I've already got an elegant bunch of cows and calves up in the foot-hills. You see I make trade with him for my wages. I've done more. Yesterday I got him to promise me a lease of grazing, and a big patch for a homestead way up there in the foot-hills. In another two years I mean to be ranching on my own, eh?

How's that?"

The girl's eyes were bright with responsive enthusiasm. She was smiling with delight at this dear friend's evident success.