So saying, he started away. When he had gone a little distance, and observed that the dog was remaining behind, an interested spectator, he called back: "Don't mind him if he watches you. His name is Shep. He likes ladies."

Janet finished setting Mr. Brown's table, which consisted of a place where the gra.s.s was worn short. When he was working among the sheep with his back turned, she patted the dog on the head with the greatest familiarity. Janet "loved" dogs. When next she looked up to see what had become of her guest, or host, he was disappearing in the deep little gully.

CHAPTER III

When the shack rose upon her vision, Janet's spirits gave a leap. A mere box it was, in the image of a house; but yet, from the moment its countenance appeared on the scene, that lost and lorn prairie seemed to have found a place for itself. The whole interminable region attached itself to the shack and became a front and backyard; the landscape was situated and set right, knowing its right hand from its left. Four walls, a roof, and a door--all the things necessary to make a threshold, that magic line across which woman faces the world with the courage of divine right. At the end of a lonesome, laborious day she saw it; and she hurried to it with a sort of homing instinct. Opening the door, she gave a start and stepped back. Another's "things" were in it. Now what should she do? It was a question with half a dozen answers; and they all said, Go.

Just outside the door was a box with a hinged lid. It contained kitchenware and supplies. There was the coffee-pot--and coffee. As there was no one in sight (rolling ground is very deceptive), she decided that, tired as she was and with the journey still before her, this opportunity of rest and a comfortable supper, with plenty of strong hot coffee, ought to be taken advantage of. Then, as soon as supper was over, she would retire from the scene and consider what was best to do. She would sit down and try her courage in the dark.

Possibly, under cover of night, she would come in closer to his camp-fire and sit there on her slicker. Or maybe there would be two men! But at present it was all undecidable, almost unthinkable; she must take this little respite from being lost and try to make the most of things.

The twigs of half-dried mesquite did not kindle readily. With fanning and blowing the fire consumed a great deal of time and matches; but at last it got itself into the spirit of burning. In the midst of these preparations she heard the bark of a dog and a medley of _baas_, and looking round the corner of the shack she saw that it was too late.

When Mr. Brown had recovered from his surprise and excused himself, she became very industrious indeed, flitting about on the little s.p.a.ce of ground like a bird in a cage. Despite her confusion, her mother wit was still with her, prompting her to cover her agitation with the appearance of housewifely activity; so every time that she beat against the bars of her situation she carried a fork or a spoon or the lid of something. She set his place, fed the fire, put on more coffee. He continued to work about the corral. Though the sight of him was not quieting, she glanced up often enough to keep track of him. He seemed to take his time.

Janet, partially blinded by too much attention to the fire, looked up through the dusk as he went to the edge of the little gully and descended. He was a "full fathom of a man," and as he sank from sight his length seemed to go right down through the surface of things, like Hamlet's father retiring to the lower regions. When, finally, his head had disappeared, she dropped her pretense of being cheerfully occupied and turned her attention in another direction. She looked hard at the shack--its door half open and the two bunks showing. Her brows drew closer together, with the enigma between them. That little Home, to which she had hurried with such a feeling of relief, had taken on a different guise. It was now the place she must get away from. At the same time black night was coming on as if to drive her into it. The sun was sinking. In the east the vanguard of darkness was already advancing. She gripped her chin tensely and tried to think, her forefinger pressed deep into the dimple. On the upper bunk was a faded blue blanket; the lower one was red.

Which way should she turn, or how conduct herself? Dreading to go and afraid to stay, she was confronted with a problem the terms of which seemed only able to repeat themselves. With the terrors of the night before her, she dared not venture away from this man; her very nature courted his presence. His strength and fearlessness she found herself clinging to as if he belonged to her--and yet he was a menace! Of course there might be nothing to fear if---- But If was the dove that found no rest for the sole of its foot.

The problem presented difficulty on every hand, as if things were on his side. The darkness and the shack worked together to prevent escape; they seemed to have her completely surrounded.

What sort of man was he?

Repeatedly she had taken note of his features, but only to feel more deeply how little can be told in that way. Her inability to decide what impression he _should_ have made on her was tantalizing--the aching question still remained. The face is but a likeness; you should know the original. And yet his countenance, so strongly painted on her mind, seemed always on the point of answering her profoundest query.

It was as if she knew him. She now contemplated her mental image more deeply, feeling that she could get behind that countenance and have absolute knowledge. But it was a delusion. The soul is invisible.

In utter homelessness she gazed down at that little s.p.a.ce of ground allotted to him and her. And the supper which united them. In nature there seemed to be no barrier between man and woman; their paths led toward each other. The flat ground seemed paved with gradual ingratiating approach; and no defense but outcry--too terrible and too late. Surely too late, for he was in the position of her protector, and she would have to a.s.sume that he was a gentleman; and how is a girl by that prairie camp-fire going to say just how much room her person shall occupy? Then how shall she set safe bounds? With the darkness closing in around her she felt trapped.

Her wits hard-pressed by this paradoxical plight, she looked with new longing at the shack. She felt that if she were on the other side of that threshold, and it were hers by right, she could stand behind it with some a.s.surance of power against him, some dependence in forces not her own. For a door-sill is definite, and on it rises a formal spectre; but the way to a woman's heart is not so. Out here there were no set bounds; nothing to give pause at a distance showing the first and fatal step: no line in nature which becomes evident before it has been pa.s.sed. Without it the moral dead-line was too close. Oh! if that shack were only hers--the rights of its lockless door.

But it was not hers. Thus Janet's imagination battered at the doors of Home, scarcely knowing what she thought, but taking mental action, nevertheless, in the face of circ.u.mstance and the quick speech of things. It seemed to her--afterwards--that never till that moment had she seen the full nature of Home. That she could see any of its features, even for a moment, in a shack so frail that a boot could break it, did not seem reasonable, even to her; but the strength of a house is not all in locks and bars. She had caught the depth of the man's first charmed look at her. Even a shack can excuse one from the scene, extinguish the light of beauty, and then say with the voice of Society--keep out. Thus things do not so easily and gradually come to an issue. But before her was only the prospect of her open presence, without screen or barrier or warning sign. And she, on her part, had not failed to note that, besides his straightness and look of strength, there was something of virile charm. What a terrible thing to be a woman! So, having turned instinctively to the shack, and recoiled from it, and then, with nothing else in sight, returned to it with the imagination of despair, there was nothing left but to turn about and stand with equal bafflement before the closed secrets of his soul.

As if by a deeper instinct, rewarding her efforts, she saw in him certain abilities for evil--deep, deliberate, and daring. He had quite deliberately left her; then he had, as deliberately, and without saying a word, gone down into that place. The little gully was as steep, almost, as a grave, deep, long, and narrow. Her eyes turned toward its gloomy shape. What could he be doing down there? What thinking? She could hear her watch tick. A meaningless _baa_ broke out in the corral and went round in changing tones among the sheep. While she is so standing, let us take a look at affairs in the gully.

Mr. Brown, upon arriving at the bottom, proceeded to cast a burden from his breast--first, a stone which he had been saving for an opossum, a rawhide thong, a newspaper which had done duty over and over, and which he kept in hope that it might yield up some further bit of news, and finally, the rabbit, all of which he dropped on the ground beside his hat; and then, getting down on his knees, he washed his face. Having spluttered vigorously into double-handfuls of water from the little stream and put the towel back on its bush, he turned his attention to his twelve-dollar boots--for in the country of boots and saddles the leatherwork is the soul of appearances. He removed the mud with his knife and brushed off the dust with the rabbit. Finding that this latter operation promised finer results, he damped the boots with the tips of his fingers, and taking hold of the long ears and hind legs he worked the rabbit back and forth so industriously that a fair polish came forth. With a careless twirl he threw the rabbit away. It was probably as well for Janet that she had no knowledge of what he was doing down there; she would have been terrified by these too evident indications of his intentions. Having combed his hair and brushed his clothes with the palms of his hands, he felt generally renovated and pulled together; he took his hat in hand and straightened up in readiness to make his appearance. Then he sat down.

Before him was the spring with night already in its depths. The little stream murmured of its flowing in the overhanging gra.s.s, and caught the color of the sunset as it ran out into the open. A little farther on it emptied its reflections into a pool of gold. Steve Brown, having in his mind's eye a vision lovelier than this, and much more interesting, rested his gaze on a dark spot which was the spring. At first, her presence at his firehole had seemed unreal; and yet perfectly natural.

It was very much as if she had just stepped down out of the sky and said, "Your wish has come true." At least, he had been wishing that he had something fit to eat, having become dissatisfied with himself as a cook. His period of due consideration did not take long; he again picked up his hat, and after a momentary pause in this vestry or anteroom of the scene he made his entrance.

Janet, having done the last possible thing to the supper, stood her ground bravely as he issued from the trench and marched upon her camp; for so it seemed to her, so conscious she was of swinging thighs and formidable front as he advanced. He hung his sombrero on a nail at the corner of the shack, apologized for his delay, and stood with his arms folded, awaiting her orders.

"Sit right down, Mr. Brown," she said, indicating his place and smiling as best she could. She seated herself on the gra.s.s opposite.

"It is very fine weather we are having, Mr. Brown," she remarked.

"Yes; it was a fine day. Nice and bright; but a little chilly."

"It looks as if it might stay this way," she added.

"Yes--I think it will. Hope it will anyway. But you can't tell."

The last remark had the effect of bringing their beginning to an end--as if this pliable subject had broken off in too strong hands.

While she poured the coffee, he served the meat, which she had put at his place; and when he saw her take up his well-filled cup he lifted her plate at the same moment and pa.s.sed it to her, giving and receiving together. In the midst of this exchange, Janet (probably owing to the ceremonious way in which he did it) suddenly saw into the little formality as if a strange new light had been shed upon it; and instantly she felt that if she had it to do again she would not set the table in this husband-and-wife way. She was smitten with self-consciousness; and thinking it over it seemed strange that she, who was so anxious to avoid all suggestion of intimacy, could have arranged such a token between them and not have been aware of it. In that all-silent place the act was like words--as if mere Things had spoken out loud.

"That is a pretty bouquet you have," he remarked.

The reference was to some spring flowers which she had plucked upon arriving and used to fill up her cup of joy, the said cup being one of Mr. Brown's.

"Yes; I thought they were very sweet. In looks, I mean. Especially that blue kind." Then suddenly, as the thought struck her, "But you see so _many_ of them!"

For a moment he looked disconcerted, like a man accused of something.

Inquiringly he looked at the flowers, first at the ones which belonged to her, then at the thousands just like them all around.

"But so did _you_ see a great many of them." This was his defense.

"Oh, yes---- Well--but what I meant"--the fact being that she did not know what she meant any more than he knew what he meant--"was---- Of course _you_ would n't pick them for a bouquet, though, would you?"

Instantly she felt that matters had been made worse. It was like offering final proof that he had not admired her flowers, really; and what was his defense?

"Oh, no--I suppose I would n't. That is, not for myself."

It was the first step of his approach!

"Some people do not care for flowers so much as others do," she answered hurriedly. "I have even heard of persons to whom the perfume was offensive; especially in damp, warm weather. Odors are always strongest in damp weather, you know."

It was a relief to feel that she had been able to lead away from it.

This put them on the weather again; then ensued a conversation perfectly inconsequential, and yet remarkable, to Janet at least, for the amount of guidance it needed. She felt, as if her fate depended on it, that there must be nothing of intimacy, not even suggestion. So much might come from the drift of the conversation. She kept it as inconsequential as she could--a sort of chat hardly worth setting down except great art had been shown in it. Had Janet been a more experienced woman, and one with the firm sure touch of the conversational pilot, there might be some interest in charting out her secret course, showing all the quick invisible moves that were made, and how she steered through swift hidden dangers and grazed imminent perils unscathed, chatting inconsequentially all the while. But Janet was not that. She was little more than a girl.

She did the best she could. Meanwhile the flowers flaunted their colors in the firelight, seeming now a danger signal to remind her of her bungling start. The flowers! She wished she had not plucked them or put them there. Those preferred posies, standing there apart from the crowd just like them, looked perfectly foolish. She did not understand what she had done it for. The moment she had made that remark she saw the only reason why he admired them: it was simply because they were _hers_. And she had almost pushed the matter to this admission, so thoughtless she was.

While they talked, she took fuller observation of him, hoping to find an answer to her great question. He wore a white shirt--this had flashed upon her first of all. Further scrutiny told her that he had better clothes than his calling would seem to allow, and in better condition. His suit was gray, and though somewhat worn and unfurbished, was evidently of fine quality. There was little about his attire which would have attracted attention in a Northern city except, possibly, the wide-brimmed hat and the boots with high heels. He was about thirty years of age. In the shack shone a polished spur--there seemed to be nothing else of cowboy accoutrement. She could not make him out. He seemed taciturn at times and eyed her strangely.

Conversation can take such quick turns. Words, even mere things, can pop up with such unlooked-for allusions. They had drifted into some remarks upon sheep-herding, a trying occupation. Mr. Brown attested its monotonous and wearing nature.

"Yes," she said, "it must be so. No doubt you are always glad enough, Mr. Brown, when the time comes to get back home again."

"Yes--I prefer town to this. But I can't exactly say that it is like going home nowadays. I have a house just outside of town on the county-seat road. But a house is n't home."

"Oh, no, indeed. But a house is a very good thing to have--even in this mild climate." She paused a moment. "But Texans," she added, "keep the windows open so much, night and day, that one might just as well sleep out of doors. There is no difference really."

Considered in all its bearings, this answer seemed an improvement; it encouraged her for the moment. But it seemed impossible for them to sit out there and talk in a man-to-man relation; they were Society.

The very phrases of society,--even the flowers, the supper, the yawning shack,--everything, it seemed to her, was against it. It is in the nature of things; and the Devil is on the man's side. They were Man and Woman, sitting out there in that little circle of fire. It seemed to her at times as if some terrible light were being thrown upon them with a burning focus.

One precaution she tried to keep constantly before her. She must not tell him her affairs--nothing of her situation in the world. It did not seem advisable even to tell him the nature of her errand to the county-seat; too much might be reasoned from it, of her helplessness.