Not for me, thank you, returned Mr. Ford smiling.
Oh, I seeyoure temperance, natrally, said Mrs. McKinstry with a tolerant sigh.
Hardly that, returned the master, I follow no rule, I drink sometimesbut not to-day.
Mrs. McKinstrys dark face contracted. Dont you see, Maw, struck in Cressy quickly. Teacher drinks sometimes, but he dont USE whiskey. Thats all.
Her mothers face relaxed. Cressy slipped out of the door before the master, and preceded him to the gate. When she had reached it she turned and looked into his face.
What did Maw say to yer about seein me just now?
I dont understand you.
To your seein me and Joe Masters on the trail?
She said nothing.
Humph, said Cressy meditatively. What was it you told her about it?
Nothing.
Then you DIDNT see us?
I saw you with some oneI dont know whom.
And you didnt tell Maw?
I did not. It was none of my business.
He instantly saw the utter inconsistency of this speech in connection with the reason he believed he had in coming. But it was too late to recall it, and she was looking at him with a bright but singular expression.
That Joe Masters is the conceitedest fellow goin. I told him you could see his foolishness.
Ah, indeed.
Mr. Ford pushed open the gate. As the girl still lingered he was obliged to hold it a moment before passing through.
Maw couldnt quite hitch on to your not drinkin. She reckons youre like everybody else about yer. Thats where she slips up on you. And everybody else, I kalkilate.
I suppose shes somewhat anxious about your father, and I dare say is expecting me to hurry, returned the master pointedly.
Oh, dads all right, said Cressy mischievously. Youll come across him over yon, in the clearing. But youre looking right purty with that gun. It kinder sets you off. You oughter wear one.
The master smiled slightly, said Good-by, and took leave of the girl, but not of her eyes, which were still following him. Even when he had reached the end of the lane and glanced back at the rambling dwelling, she was still leaning on the gate with one foot on the lower rail and her chin cupped in the hollow of her hand. She made a slight gesture, not clearly intelligible at that distance; it might have been a mischievous imitation of the way he had thrown the gun over his shoulder, it might have been a wafted kiss.
The master however continued his way in no very self-satisfied mood. Although he did not regret having taken the place of Cressy as the purveyor of lethal weapons between the belligerent parties, he knew he was tacitly mingling in the feud between people for whom he cared little or nothing. It was true that the Harrisons sent their children to his school, and that in the fierce partisanship of the locality this simple courtesy was open to misconstruction. But he was more uneasily conscious that this mission, so far as Mrs. McKinstry was concerned, was a miserable failure. The strange relations of the mother and daughter perhaps explained much of the girls conduct, but it offered no hope of future amelioration. Would the father, worrited by stock and boundary quarrelsa man in the habit of cutting Gordian knots with a bowie knifeprove more reasonable? Was there any nearer sympathy between father and daughter? But she had said he would meet McKinstry in the clearing: she was right, for here he was coming forward at a gallop!
CHAPTER III
When within a dozen paces of the master, McKinstry, scarcely checking his mustang, threw himself from the saddle, and with a sharp cut of his riata on the animals haunches sent him still galloping towards the distant house. Then, with both hands deeply thrust in the side pockets of his long, loose linen coat, he slowly lounged with clanking spurs towards the young man. He was thick-set, of medium height, densely and reddishly bearded, with heavy-lidded pale blue eyes that wore a look of drowsy pain, and after their first wearied glance at the master, seemed to rest anywhere but on him.
Your wife was sending you your rifle by Cressy, said the master, but I offered to bring it myself, as I thought it scarcely a proper errand for a young lady. Here it is. I hope you didnt miss it before and dont require it now, he added quietly.
Mr. McKinstry took it in one hand with an air of slightly embarrassed surprise, rested it against his shoulder, and then with the same hand and without removing the other from his pocket, took off his soft felt hat, showed a bullet-hole in its rim, and returned lazily, Its about half an hour late, but them Harrisons reckoned I was fixed for em and war too narvous to draw a clear bead on me.
The moment was evidently not a felicitous one for the masters purpose, but he was determined to go on. He hesitated an instant, when his companion, who seemed to be equally but more sluggishly embarrassed, in a moment of preoccupied perplexity withdrew from his pocket his right hand swathed in a blood-stained bandage, and following some instinctive habit, attempted, as if reflectively, to scratch his head with two stiffened fingers.
You are hurt, said the master, genuinely shocked, and here I am detaining you.
I had my hand upso, explained McKinstry, with heavy deliberation, and the ball raked off my little finger after it went through my hat. But that aint what I wanted to say when I stopped ye. I aint just kam enough yet, he apologized in the calmest manner, and I clean forgit myself, he added with perfect self-possession. But I was kalkilatin to ask youhe laid his bandaged hand familiarly on the masters shoulderif Cressy kem all right?
Perfectly, said the master. But shant I walk on home with you, and we can talk together after your wound is attended to?
And she looked purty? continued McKinstry without moving.
Very.
And you thought them new store gownds of hers right peart?
Yes, said the master. Perhaps a little too fine for the school, you know, he added insinuatingly, and
Not for hernot for her, interrupted McKinstry. I reckon thars more whar that cam from! Ye neednt fear but that she kin keep up that gait ez long ez Hiram McKinstry hez the runnin of her.
Mr. Ford gazed hopelessly at the hideous ranch in the distance, at the sky, and the trail before him; then his glance fell upon the hand still upon his shoulder, and he struggled with a final effort. At another time Id like to have a long talk with you about your daughter, Mr. McKinstry.
Talk on, said McKinstry, putting his wounded hand through the masters arm. I admire to hear you. Youre that kam, it does me good.
Nevertheless the master was conscious that his own arm was scarcely as firm as his companions. It was however useless to draw back now, and with as much tact as he could command he relieved his mind of its purpose. Addressing the obtruding bandage before him, he dwelt upon Cressys previous attitude in the school, the danger of any relapse, the necessity of her having a more clearly defined position as a scholar, and even the advisability of her being transferred to a more advanced school with a more mature teacher of her own sex. This is what I wished to say to Mrs. McKinstry to-day, he concluded, but she referred me to you.
In course, in course, said McKinstry, nodding complacently. Shes a good woman in and around the ranch, and in any doins o this kind, he lightly waved his wounded arm in the air, there aint a better, tho I say it. She was Blair Rawlins darter; she and her brother Clay bein the only ones that kem out safe arter their twenty years fight with the McEntees in West Kaintuck. But she dont understand gals ez you and me do. Not that Im much, ez I orter be more kam. And the old woman jest sized the hull thing when she said SHE hadnt any hand in Cressys engagement. No more she had! And ez far ez that goes, no more did me, nor Seth Davis, nor Cressy. He paused, and lifting his heavy-lidded eyes to the master for the second time, said reflectively, Ye mustnt mind my tellin yeez betwixt man and manthat THE one ez is most responsible for the makin and breakin o that engagement is YOU!