The Heart of Thunder Mountain Part 8

"But in the name of--who is he?"

The little man had descended like a parachute from his pony, and was now bobbing rapidly up the graveled walk.

"Smythe," explained Claire hurriedly. "But he's here now--I'll let him tell you--he likes to talk."

At the foot of the steps he caught sight of the two women in the doorway; removed his wonderful headgear with an eighteenth-century gesture; ducked his head in a twentieth-century bow; and smiled.

Claire stepped quickly out on the veranda.

"Oh, Mr. Smythe!" she cried gaily. "I'm so glad to see you. Come in!"

He was an undersized young man, immaculately dressed in brown tweeds and s.h.i.+ning boots, a very high white collar and a sky-blue tie. The sombrero swinging in his hand was quite new, ornamented with a broad band of stamped leather, and it had the widest brim obtainable at the shop in Denver where a specialty is made of equipping the tenderfoot for life in the cattle country.

Smythe took Claire's proffered hand, and bent over it as if he had thought of kissing it, but lacked the courage of his gallantry. Claire introduced him to Marion, answered his questions about Seth, and then fluttered away to the kitchen, where she had an angel cake in the oven not to be entrusted to the cook.

"I arrived only yesterday, Miss g.a.y.l.o.r.d," Smythe chirped. "But I've heard of you already."

"I don't know whether to thank you or not," answered Marion.

"Oh, if you please! What I heard made me very solicitous about Huntington's health."

He smiled knowingly at her, and Marion loosed some of her pent-up laughter. Truly, Smythe was going to be a treat! She studied him stealthily while he chattered on. He wore a pointed beard of reddish hue; his head was quite bald on top, and bulging at the brow; and the contour of that head, with its polished dome, and the narrow face tapering down to the pointed beard, was comically suggestive of a carrot. But it was an intelligent, even intellectual countenance, and his blue eyes were honest and bright. He might be laughed at, but he could not be flouted, she thought.

"Then you've been here before, Mr. ----" she began, and hesitated.

"Smythe," he prompted her generously. "J. Hamerton Smythe. S-m-y-t-h-e.

I didn't change it from Smith, and I don't know what one of my esteemed ancestors did. But I'm glad he did. It gives me a touch of artificiality, don't you think? I fear being too natural."

Marion laughed, and that pleased him. She led the way to chairs near an open window where a black and yellow b.u.t.terfly hovered over a honeysuckle blossom that had nodded its friendly way into the room.

"I'm from New York too," Smythe rattled on. "Columbia. Doing a little tutoring and a little postgraduate work. This is my third summer in the Park. Found it by chance. Wanted to go somewhere, and was tired of the old places--Maine and Adirondacks and the rest. Looked at a map in a railroad office, and there it was, sticking right out at me, the first name I lighted on. In small type too--curious, wasn't it? Clerks in office hadn't heard of it, but I started out to find it. Thought I'd better get to Paradise when I could. And now I'm glad. I feel like an old settler, and I believe the cow-punchers have ceased to regard me as a tenderfoot. That's as flattering as a Ph.D."

"I'm afraid they laugh at me," said Marion.

"On the contrary. Believe me, these cowboys have taken to reading poetry since you came."

"Please be natural, Mr. Smythe!"

"Fact! I'd hardly got my things unpacked before one of them was riding over to ask me if I had a book about Lady Clara Vere de Vere.

It seems he'd heard the poem recited somewhere. I asked him why he wanted it, but he looked so fl.u.s.tered that I let him off. Didn't have a Tennyson with me, unfortunately, but I gave him my Byron, and I think that will hold him for a while."

"Charming!" exclaimed Marion. "But what has all that to do with me?"

"He's the chap that grabbed you in his arms when you were falling from your horse after that little business at Thompson's the other day."

Marion blushed, and then laughed.

"But how did you come to hear about that?" she demanded.

He chuckled.

"Oh, I hear everything!" he replied. "My friends say I've a nose for news."

"Well, I shall be very careful what I say to you."

"Please, no!" he protested. "I'm a safety vault when it comes to secrets."

She glanced quickly toward the door of Seth's bedroom, then toward the kitchen, before she spoke.

"So you've heard all about that day at the post-office?" she said in a low voice.

"Yes."

"Terrible!"

"But not unexpected."

"Why not unexpected?"

"Well," he replied, lowering his voice, and leaning nearer to Marion, "I'm afraid Huntington was looking for it."

"You mean--he deserved it?"

"I won't say that. You see--I'm neutral, like Thompson. I like Huntington, and I like Haig. I look at this fight without prejudice, even though I've a reason to be prejudiced."

"In favor of--?"

"Huntington."

"Why, please?"

"Huntington accepts my friends.h.i.+p, after a fas.h.i.+on."

"But--the other?"

"Nothing doing!"

Marion stared at him, wondering.

"Fact!" he a.s.sured her, with a sheepish smile.

"But why?"

"Don't know. I'd like to, but he lives like a hermit. Latchstring never hangs outside his door."

There was a certain evidence of feeling in Smythe's speech.

"You speak as if you--"