CHAPTER IX

MR. CRUSOE OF CRIPPLE CREEK

Mr. Crusoe was washing an extra shirt in the ford between Elk Creek Valley and the Gap. The absence of soap was a distinct disadvantage, but water, a corrugated stone, and Mr. Crusoe's diligence were working wonders. A short distance away among the quaking-asps smoldered the embers of a small fire; a blackened and empty bean-can on the hearth-stone, together with a two-tined fork, bore evidence of a recent breakfast.

His washing completed, Mr. Crusoe turned his attention to his personal appearance. Deep in the waters of Elk Creek he plunged his arms, bare to the elbow, and washed his neck and face. From one pocket he drew a soiled and folded towel, which upon being unrolled disclosed a diminutive brush and an almost toothless comb. With these he proceeded to arrange his somewhat long and dripping black hair. His two weeks' old whiskers apparently worried him, for he pulled them meditatively; but since he was far from a barber and carried no shaving appliances, the brush and comb must suffice for them also. Finally he took his battered old hat from a nearby branch, brushed it carefully, arranged the crown so that fewer holes appeared, and put it upon his head. His clean shirt, spread upon a quaking-asp but by no means dry, afforded the best of reasons why he should not hurry; so, drawing a stained and stubby pipe and sack of tobacco from another pocket, Mr. Crusoe lay beneath a friendly cottonwood at the water's edge and gave himself to quiet contemplation.

The morning was perfect, and no one could appreciate it more keenly than Mr. Crusoe, wanderer that he was. He blew a great mouthful of blue smoke into the still air, watched it circle lazily upward, and blew another to hasten the progress of the first. His black eyes, peering from a forest of eyebrows and whiskers, looked long upon the blossoms that clothed Elk Creek Valley--sunflowers, early golden-rod and purple thistles--swept the friendly, tumbling foot-hills and sought beneath the over-hanging trees for the secrets of the creek. It was a morning to love things, Mr. Crusoe thought to himself. He was glad that he had left his comrades of the railroad tracks; more glad that he had abandoned freight-jumping for a season; most glad that he had decided to work during the early fall months. Then with money in his pockets and a new suit of clothes upon his back, he might go back to Cripple Creek whence he had come.

A few minutes later his contemplations were broken by the sound of horses'

feet coming through the Gap. He sat up, interested, and removed his pipe.

In another moment as he met the wide-open eyes of two very much startled young ladies, his hat followed. Mr. Crusoe was used to speaking to persons whom he met in his journeyings. It was one of the many joys of the road.

"Good-mornin', comrades," said he.

The hearts of Mary and Vivian leaped into their throats. Their eyes, leaving Mr. Crusoe's, saw in one terrifying instant the shirt drying on the quaking-asp, the smoldering fire, the empty bean-can. This man was a tramp! He belonged to that disgusting clan of vagabonds who asked for food at back-doors, and whom one, if frightened into doing it, fed on back stoops as one fed the cat! He, like his fellows, would inspire one to lock all the doors at noonday, and to tell one's neighbors there was a tramp abroad!

"Good-mornin'," said Mr. Crusoe again. "It's a fine day."

This time Mary answered. She did not dare keep silent. The tramp might become angry.

"Good-morning," she faltered.

Vivian said nothing. She was waiting for Mary to plan a means of escape.

Meanwhile Siwash and his companion, feeling their reins tighten, had stopped and were nibbling at the quaking-asps, quite undisturbed.

Mr. Crusoe rose, hat in hand.

"Was you plannin' to ford, young ladies?" he asked politely.

The vanishing flanks of two horses, unceremoniously yanked away from their luncheon and turned toward the prairie, were his only answer. Mr. Crusoe gazed wonderingly into a cloud of dust. Then he felt of his washing on the quaking-asp. It was dry enough. Laying his pipe and hat on the ground, he proceeded to get into the clean shirt.

"Poor little things!" he said from its somewhat damp depths. "They was plum scared of me!"

The shirt on, he did its mate into a bundle, cut a forked stick upon which to sling it, stamped out the last ember of his dying fire, took his hat and pipe, and started north up the creek trail.

Vivian and Mary did not stop their wild gallop until they were well in sight of the nearest house on the prairie. Blue gentians for Miss Wallace, which had been their errand, were quite forgotten. So also was the glory of the morning. Instead, there ever rose before their still startled eyes a black-whiskered, coatless man, smoking the stub of a dirty pipe beneath a cottonwood.

"Mary," said Vivian, gathering courage as the Keith house came into view, and breaking a long, frightened silence, "Mary, did you ever see any one so villainous-looking in your life--outside of the movies, I mean? I guess my heart will never stop thumping! I wish Virginia had been with us!

She's always saying there's no one around here to harm any one. I just wish she had!"

"I sort of wish we hadn't run so," returned Mary, pulling her horse down to a walk. "Maybe he wasn't any one harmful at all, only he scared me so I never stopped to think. I'd hate to be a sn.o.b, even to a tramp!"

"I wouldn't! I glory in it! And, besides, you needn't worry. It takes time to be a sn.o.b, and we didn't waste a moment. Here's the Keith house. Hadn't we best go in for a moment? There's Carver now playing with Kenneth."

The Keiths, upon hearing the story, quieted Vivian's fears, and confirmed Mary's increasing regret. The man was only a hobo, Donald said, doubtless seeking work. They looked unmistakably rough, but were often good fellows inside. Probably he wouldn't have frightened them for the world.

"I wish this fellow would stray our way," he added. "We're going to be in need of extra hands when threshing comes, and it won't be long now. Dad would welcome him all right."

Vivian stared at Donald, incredulous and speechless. There was no need of asking him if he meant what he had just said. Apparently that horrible creature back there by the creek, the very remembrance of whom caused cold shivers to run over Vivian, would be given a welcome by the Keith family.

Vivian's nose, already a trifle high, rose higher. Democracy was unquestionably a splendid attribute. Since knowing Virginia and coming West, she was more inclined to believe in it than ever. But this was too much!

An hour later they were riding homeward, their hands filled with gentians.

Donald and Jack had ridden back with them to the ford to act as protectors, and, Vivian secretly believed, to interview the hobo, were he still there, upon the subject of threshing. But only an empty bean-can and the charred remnants of a fire bore evidence of the wayfarer. He had gone!

Rea.s.sured, they had gathered gentians to their hearts' content, left the boys upon the prairie, and ridden homeward.

Mr. Hunter came to meet them as they rode beneath the cottonwoods.

"Crusoe," he called to some one on the other side of the porch, "here's your first job! Take these horses to the corral."

An attempt to describe the sensations which swept over Mary and Vivian when they recognized their acquaintance of the morning would be impossible. Unable for a moment to dismount, they sat in their saddles and stared. Mr. Crusoe, undoubtedly sensible of their surprise, patted Siwash, who responded gladly in spite of black whiskers and a battered hat. Mr.

Hunter, thinking that the flowers might be the reason of their delay, relieved them of the gentians. Mary and Vivian, thus a.s.sisted, finally fell from the saddles, and followed Mr. Hunter to the porch.

"Mr. Hunter," gasped Vivian when the new man had taken the horses, "do you know who he is? He's a hobo! Donald said so! We met him this morning down at the ford--Mary and I. He scared us almost to death! He had washed a shirt and it was drying on the bushes, and he ate canned beans for breakfast right out of the can with a dirty, bent, old fork. He was lying under a tree and smoking a hideous pipe as we rode up! I never was so horrified in all my life! And, Mr. Hunter, he took off his hat and spoke to us! I thought we'd die! Siwash would eat the bushes, and I thought we'd never escape! He's not going to stay here after he has something to eat, is he, Mr. Hunter? You don't know how awful he is!"

Vivian stopped--merely for breath. Mr. Hunter with a mighty effort repressed a smile. Mary was torn between a desire to play fair and the awful remembrance of her fright. She said nothing.

"Vivian," said Mr. Hunter, "out here we've learned not to judge persons by whether or not they wash in the creek and eat canned beans. I'm sorry Crusoe frightened you. He isn't exactly captivating in appearance, I'll admit, but, from what I can gather, he seems to be a pretty good sort. Any man's worth a try-out, you know. He's looking for work, and now that threshing is coming on I'm looking for an extra man, so he's going to stay here a spell. These fellows who take to the road, you see, fill a great need out here in this country. We depend on one or more of them showing up about this time of year."

Vivian was still staring, unable to speak. Mary, desirous that Mr. Crusoe should not misunderstand their flight, explained the affair to Mr. Hunter, a little more rationally than Vivian had done.

"You see," she finished, "it's just that we aren't used to seeing persons like that, and he _did_ look fierce, Mr. Hunter. I wish you'd explain to him how it was. I shouldn't want to be rude even to a hobo."

Mr. Hunter smiled.

"He'll understand, Mary," he said. "In fact, he does already, for when he saw you riding home he told me about how frightened you were at the ford.

Don't be at all alarmed, Vivian," he called, for Vivian was hurrying into the house, her head high. "He's a gentleman--underneath the whiskers and the shirt."

So Mr. Crusoe stayed on at the Hunter ranch. The men liked him--that was plain to be seen. Every evening their laughter echoed from the bunk-house where Mr. Crusoe was entertaining them with his songs and stories. Even the silent William was loud in his praise, and Mr. Weeks, the foreman, in speaking of his ability and readiness to work, suggested a permanent position. Mary allowed but a day to go by before apologizing for her flight from the ford, and after Mr. Crusoe's courteous acceptance became his firm adherent, much to Vivian's disgust. Even Aunt Nan found him interesting, while Virginia and Priscilla listened eagerly to his tales of Cripple Creek. They were collecting theme material, they told the disdainful Vivian.

Apparently Mr. Crusoe had stormed and taken the Hunter ranch. Only one member of the family remained his enemy. Vivian was still unconvinced. To her every one else on the ranch had taken his place among the number of those condemned by the apostle, "who, having eyes, see not." In her suspicious eyes Mr. Crusoe was a "ravening wolf" of whom she should beware. When she had an infrequent occasion to address him she used an offended dignity, tinged with scorn; when his name was brought into the conversation she remained silent, secure in the knowledge that some day they would all see this tramp in his true light!

In three days Vivian had worked herself into a state from the eminence of which she looked down with protecting pity upon Aunt Nan, the other Vigilantes, and Mr. Hunter. They were being hoodwinked, and she alone was left to guard their interests. Harrowing memories of tales she had read, terrifying visions of escaped criminals whom she had witnessed in the "movies," and who exactly resembled Mr. Crusoe, came to disturb her rest and haunt her dreams. She was a quaking detective, watching Mr. Crusoe's every act, and discovering treachery and evil design in the most innocent of them.

On the fourth day following Mr. Crusoe's advent matters approached a climax. In the early afternoon Mr. Hunter, driving to town on business, had taken the other Vigilantes with him. Vivian, with letters to write, had remained at home, feeling safe with Aunt Nan. In her stimulated imagination Mr. Crusoe had been behaving peculiarly all the morning, and not for worlds would she have stayed alone.

Hannah left soon after the others, going for raspberries up the canyon; Aunt Nan, thoughtful and strangely silent, was in the living-room, where within an hour she was joined by Malcolm Keith; Vivian sat beneath the vines in the corner of the porch, and tried to center her attention upon a letter she was writing to Dorothy. She was not eminently successful. Grave apprehensions, strange forebodings, filled her heart. Once Mr. Crusoe pa.s.sed empty-handed before the porch. He did not see Vivian, although he might easily have detected the beating of her heart. She watched him pause, study for a brief moment the house, its doors and windows, and then pa.s.s on. He was seizing the opportunity while they were all away, Vivian told herself, to become better acquainted with his surroundings. Then some day, not far distant, or some night, he----!

She jumped from her seat and ran indoors. At that moment she wanted company more than anything else in the world. Sunny as it was outside, the silence worried her. There was something portentous even in the singing of the August insects. Aunt Nan's genuine interest in Mr. Crusoe and his welfare would probably prevent Vivian from giving expression to her new-born fears; but at least nearness to some one might quiet the misgivings which were tormenting her.

She reached the living-room door, and stood still, unable to make her presence known, and, for a moment, unable to run away. Aunt Nan and Malcolm Keith were standing by the big western window which faced the prairie and the distant mountains. Malcolm's arm was around Aunt Nan, and her head was on his shoulder. As Vivian stood transfixed to the spot by a strange Something, Malcolm bent his head, and--Vivian fled, unperceived!

That same strange Something, stronger than her fear of the silence or even of Mr. Crusoe, was making her breath come in gasps as she sank into her chair and tried to collect her scattered senses. Truly Life was being too generous to her that day! So Malcolm and Aunt Nan loved each other! That was clearly unmistakable. She was sorry she had intruded, though she knew they had not heard her. In that last moment before she had found strength to run away she felt as though she had come unbidden into a sacred place.

Her cheeks burned at the thought. How surprised the girls would be when she told them! No, she would not tell! It was Aunt Nan's secret--hers and Malcolm's!