despite the fact that there were two against him, the curious man from the mountains needed little aid. he was a powerful cyclops, and his columnar arms flailed out to right and left as he fought on his back like a ’coon. he might have pounded off his enemies and gained his feet alone in time. but andy had grabbed the coat collar of omar leach, and dr. shonto, himself a snarl of sinewy muscles, was in like manner dragging smith morley from the prostrate mountaineer. charmian reemy, biting her lips, looked on without a word. mary observed proceedings with an acidulous smile, which might have signified any one of several primitive emotions.
while the doctor and andy held the prospectors off, shirttail henry bounded to his feet and broadcasted a wide grin about the circle.
“you boys,” he said to leach and morley, “come purty near goin’ too fur that time. some o’ these days when ye get rambunctious with me, i’ll take a stick and knock yer gysh-danged heads off. heh-heh-heh!”
despite the rather serious aspect of the situation,[66] charmian burst into a fit of laughter. nothing could have been milder than the tone that shirttail henry used in reproaching his assailants. and his grin, together with the cackling laugh that followed his words of censure, took all of the menace out of his speech. time and again in later days she was to hear shirttail henry utter dire threats of vengeance on some one, but invariably the sting was taken from his venomous tirade by the cracked “heh-heh-heh” that followed it.
morley and leach glowered at him, but made no further move to molest him. they knew that they were “in bad” with the prospective buyers of their mining properties, so they held their peace and did not struggle to free themselves.
it was charmian who broke the silence that followed shirttail henry richkirk’s prophecy.
“this is a fine set of proceedings,” she said witheringly. “mr. richkirk, if you care to, we’d like to have you camp with us to-night. we—i mean the greenhorns of the party—are ready and willing to do anything to make amends for the inhospitable treatment mr. leach and mr. morley have shown you. and if you feel inclined to tell me what you hinted at—about opals, you know—i’ll certainly be glad to hear it.”
but to her surprise shirttail henry had half turned from her and was gazing through a break in the buttes at the distant mountains. the moon was showering its pale radiance on the desert. shirttail henry extended one of his long arms and pointed to a tiny cloud[67] above the distant range, which the moonlight now revealed.
“see that cloud?” he asked. “well, that means shirttail henry and lot’s wife have gotta go. i can’t stay with ye to-night, ma’am—thank ye kindly. i gotta be gettin’ to shirttail bend right quick, for maybe that cloud means rain. c’m’on, mrs. lot.” he hurried to the burro and grabbed up the lead-rope. “good night, people. i’ll see ye maybe to-morrow, ma’am, an’ tell ye about the opals. good night, all—and thank ye kindly!”
with the newcomers staring after him in wonderment, he hustled his dejected pack animal out of camp, and they faded away into the desert night.
“well, of all things!” gasped mary temple.
“you can see for yourselves,” said leach, with a note of doggedness in his tones, “that he’s a regular nut. he’s a hermit and lives all alone up there, not seeing anybody in months. he traps and fishes, and makes out in a disreputable cabin, with only his burro for company. he’s the biggest nuisance imaginable, and, besides, he’s dangerously insane.”
“i don’t believe that, mr. leach,” charmian declared, and set her red lips tightly after the words.
leach shrugged. “can’t help that, mrs. reemy,” he told her in a hurt tone. “but it’s the truth. i don’t want him in camp with me when i’m asleep. he might sneak up and cut my throat. the one thing on earth that i fear is a crazy man.”
andy and dr. shonto had released their captives,[68] and now they silently sat down on the ground and awaited the outcome of the dialogue between charmian and the opal miners. this was her adventure, and they did not wish to interfere so long as their opinions were not asked for.
“what did he mean about the cloud?” she asked.
“oh, that,” said morley, and laughed shortly. “he is employed by the weather bureau to record the rainfall and snowfall in the section of the mountains where he lives. he gets seven or seven and a half a month—i forget just how much—for being on hand to read his rain gauge and sending in his reports. it’s the most ridiculous thing you ever heard of, mrs. reemy. henry will be away ’tending to his traps, and up comes a little cloud about the size of his ear. then he drops everything and races home to his rain gauge, over which he’ll squat until the cloud floats out of his section of the mountains. and when it does rain or snow he chases with his report all the way to diamond h ranch and sends it in to the weather bureau. and maybe while he’s making the trip another cloud will show up. then he’s between the devil and the deep blue sea, for his report ought to go in at once, while at the same time more rain is threatening on his station. all that for not over seven and a half a month. can you beat it! what do you think of him now? is he crazy? and the kick he gets out of that job would make a horse laugh. he’s always calling himself a goverment official; and when his check doesn’t arrive promptly he writes a complaint to the president. oh, henry’s a scream, all right!”
[69]“he may be all of that,” charmian spoke thoughtfully, “but that’s no excuse for mistreating him.”
“why, mrs. reemy—”
“i don’t believe that i care to hear any defence of what you two men did to-night,” she interrupted crisply. “please let’s drop the subject. i’m tired; i’m going to bed. good night, everybody.”
she walked away toward her tent, but paused suddenly, turned, and hurled back a parting shot.
“and i shall have a talk with shirttail henry before going any further into the buying of your opal claims.”
then she walked on out of the radius of the firelight glow.
it was dawn when dr. inman shonto awoke. he crawled halfway out of his blankets and parted the tent flaps. through the inchoate light he saw the gleam of the campfire and a figure moving about it. he heard the low rattle of pots and pans. the figure, he knew soon, was that of the industrious mary temple, and she was all alone.
the doctor himself had intended to rise first, rebuild the fire, and set water on to boil; but mary had forestalled him. provoked at himself for allowing a woman to rise first and begin the hard work of camp life, he struggled into his clothes without awaking andy and hurried out to her.
“good morning,” he greeted her. “it’s pretty shivery out here. you beat me to it, and i apologize[70] for oversleeping and allowing you to start breakfast alone.”
“you’re a very considerate gentleman, doctor,” replied mary temple. “but this is nothing new for me, and i like to work. i like to smell the dawn come, too. they’ve gone.”
“what’s that? who’s gone, miss temple?”
“leach and morley and his wife,” mary replied, raking coals one side from the fire on which to place the coffeepot to simmer.
“gone? gone where?”
“land knows! but i guessed it last night. they knew they’d not have any chance after charmian talked with that shirttail body. they’re crooked, doctor. a dog’s hind leg would look like a steel ruler ’longside of leach and morley. i knew it—i just knew it all along!”
“do you mean, miss temple, that morley and his wife and leach have ridden off and left us here on the desert?—that their opal claims are a fake, and that they were afraid shirttail henry would expose them to mrs. reemy?”
“of course,” answered mary simply. “i knew it all along, but nobody would have paid any attention to me, so i couldn’t say boo to a goose. now isn’t this a beautiful splatchet?”
“i don’t believe i understand you,” puzzled the physician. “a ‘splatchet’?”
mary never seemed to find the dictionaries adequate to the needs of her vocabulary. she invented words[71] indiscriminately when the sound of them seemed to suggest the thought she wanted to express.
“a splatchet,” she said carefully, “is a double mess on the floor. if you were baking pancakes, for instance, and turned to the sink a second to rinse out a couple of teacups, then saw that the pancakes were about to burn, and then you jumped for them and upset both the dishwater and the pancake batter, you’d make a splatchet on the floor.”
“what animals have they taken?” asked shonto, with a smile at her droll word coinage. “have you investigated?”
“of course,” said mary. “they’ve taken the three horses they rode here on, a little grub, and three canteens of water. that’s all. no great loss to us. we’ve plenty left to travel back on. they tied what grub they took behind their saddles, for all the burros are here.”
“you didn’t find a note or anything like that?”
“nothing.”
“well, this is a pretty mess, miss temple! mrs. reemy will be sick with disappointment.”
“maybe so. it’ll do her good. if she’d taken my advice she’d be tucked in her pretty ivory bed at el trono de tolerancia this minute, and i’d be turning flapjacks at the fireplace. but, no—i don’t know anything! nobody listens to me!”
“to be quite frank with you,” said the doctor, “i’m a little glad too that things have turned out like this. i hated to see mrs. reemy sink fifty thousand dollars[72] in opal mines, so i offered to go in with her. so did andy. but all three of us have about as much need for an opal mine as we have for two noses. just the same, i was willing to put my shoulder under a third of the proposition to please mrs. reemy and help her out with her great adventure. but now, as i said, i’m rather satisfied that it has turned out as it has.”
“you like to see the fire flash in her brown eyes when she talks about her big adventure, don’t you, doctor?” mary temple shot at him.
dr. shonto laughed, though by no means mirthfully. “what do you mean by that?” he asked.
mary’s faded eyes looked at him steadily, and the thin nostrils of her long nose twitched squirrel-like. “oh, you know what i mean,” she lashed out. “i can read the signs. well, i never was a body to hold my tongue. i say what i think. and now i’m thinking that i’d rather see you get her than your friend mr. jerome. he may be all right, so far as men go, but he’s too much like her to suit me. too young and rattle-headed. you could tone her down a bit. but jerome’ll get her—that’s plain. she’s in love with him this minute. but it won’t last, doctor. there’ll be a divorce if they marry. then you can step in. but for my part i’d rather see her single.”
“i think,” said shonto soberly, “that in your youth you must have sung an old ditty that comes to my mind—
“what are the little girls made out of?
what are the little girls made out of?
[73]
sugar and spice and everything nice—
that’s what the little girls are made out of.
“what are the little boys made out of?
what are the little boys made out of?
rats and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails—
that’s what the little boys are made out of.”
“you have a pretty good bass voice,” was all that mary said, as she began slicing bacon on the bottom of a bucket.
