The Westerners Part 15

In twenty minutes Molly knew the history of everyone of any importance in town. She found the child's primitive instinct of hero wors.h.i.+p an unerring touchstone by which to judge of each individual's influence in this little community. He reflected the camp's opinion, and this was exactly what she wanted to learn. She encouraged the boy to talk--not a difficult matter, for his attentions had hitherto been quite ignored, saving by Frosty and Peter. Frosty had proved valuable always in the matter of skinning game or extracting refractory sh.e.l.ls, but he had never, even in his youngest days, been a boy. Between Peter and the Kid was waged a perpetual war on the subject of hunting methods. The Kid believed in stalking. Peter held the opinion that the chase was the only n.o.ble form of the sport. The child had been lonely, strange.

Now he chatted to Molly with all the self-reliant confidence which pertains of right to healthy boyhood, but which heretofore he had been denied. He boasted with accustomed air. He spoke lightly of great deeds. Molly did not laugh at him. His heart warmed to her, and he fell in love with her on the spot. This was perhaps the most important conquest the girl was destined to make, for there is no devotion in the world like that of a boy of thirteen for a girl older than himself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WATCH ME HIT THAT SQUIRREL!"]

In a little time, Molly had gathered a number of men about her, and was holding them by sheer force of charm.

"How are you?" she called pleasantly to the first.

"Purty smart," grinned the man, slouching past awkwardly. "How's yourself?"

"Good. Come on over and see me and the Kid for awhile."

She talked to him lightly, while he lumbered along after with his slow wits. Other men came out, to all of whom she called a greeting, and some of whom she summoned to her. She held them easily. It became an audience, a court. They had a good time. There was much laughter. No one grudged the delay. Each man held his axe shouldered, expecting to go on to work in a moment or so, but still lingering--because she willed that he should.

After a time, the hotel began to give up its inmates. The gambler came forth into the suns.h.i.+ne and lit a cigarette. Graham joined him, casting an amused eye at the men about the wagon. Two or three others, including the proprietor, leaned against the hitching rail watching the animated group. Finally Cheyenne Harry sauntered carelessly forth.

His broad hat--straight-brimmed in a lop-brimmed camp--was pushed to one side. He swaggered a little.

The girl saw him and jumped down from the wagon tongue, breaking off suddenly in a remark she was making.

"Hi, you!" she called.

He paid no attention.

"Hi, you!" she repeated, jumping up and down with a pretty impatient flutter of the hands. "Hi, you! Come here! You're wanted!"

He looked up surprised.

"Come here!" she repeated.

And he went.

"Now, boys," she said, when he had joined the group, "I'm going to live with you, and if I live with you, I must have a place to live in. So I want you to build me a shack. Will you do it?"

The men looked at one another.

"All right," went on Molly, taking their silence for consent, and a.s.suming a small air of proprietors.h.i.+p which became her well. She specified site and size. "And you," she commanded Cheyenne Harry, "are to boss one gang and I'll take the other. You stay here and level up, and I'll go with some of the boys to cut the timber."

She knew Harry would not refuse because his pistol holster was empty and all the camp knew why. And yet levelling up is a most disagreeable job, for it is a question of pulverized rock and wood blocks, in soft ground; and of blasting with dynamite, in hard ground.

Molly issued her orders rapidly. Axes were found, log chains exhumed from the warehouse dust, horses harnessed. She waited long enough to see the gang under Cheyenne Harry well started in its work; and then, herself mounted on one of the horses, she and the other men took their way down the ravine in search of timber. She was satisfied with having been able to give Cheyenne Harry just the position of authority in the little undertaking which he now held, but she confessed to a feeling of disappointment that Billy Knapp had not been forthcoming, for he too should have had a place in her scheme. She had observed Jack Graham near the hotel, but she had other ideas in regard to the management of that refractory individual.

But it so happened that, in regard to Billy, chance helped her out.

The route selected ran up the valley, and about the bend was situated the Great Snake lode, Billy Knapp's famous claim, before the shack of which its proprietor was at that very moment fuming savagely over the non-arrival of certain men he had hired to build more fitting quarters for the new company's inspection. Billy blew a big cloud from his pipe, and swore, when he finally caught sight of a group of axemen and horses headed in his direction.

The men saw him too. They began to laugh. "Good one on Billy Knapp,"

they agreed. "He must be pretty hot when his axe gang don't come any."

The girl overheard them.

"What's that about Billy Knapp?" she asked sharply.

"Didn't mean y' to hear, ma'am," replied the speaker. "Don' matter ez fur's we's concerned. But Billy, he aims to put up a shack to-day, gettin' ready for them tenderfeet that's comin' from Cheecawgo to look over th' property; an' he hires a lot of th' boys t' put it up fer him, an', you see, you runs off with 'most the hull outfit yere to build you a shack. So, natural, we thinks it makes Billy hot."

"I see," said Molly. She reflected a moment. "Where is it?" she asked.

"That's it, right to the lef'. And that's Billy walkin' 'round loose."

They laughed again.

Without a word she turned the animal she was riding sharp to the left, and began to mount the little knoll. The men followed in consternation. Billy's patience was not noted for its evenness.

"Hullo, Billy!" she cried when she was near enough. "Good morning!"

Billy had not at first caught sight of her, and was now plainly a little nonplussed over his unexpected guest. Clearly he could not at this moment "cuss out" the delinquents as they deserved. He removed his broad black hat.

"Good mo'ning! Good mo'ning!" he replied to the girl's greeting.

"Come up t' see th' wo'ks?"

"Whoa!" called Molly. The men stopped. "No," she said flatly, "I didn't. Not to-day, that is. I'm busy. I'm hunting for good timber."

Billy looked puzzled. "Timber?" he repeated.

"Yes, timber. I'm going to have a shack built, and these boys are going to put it up for me."

Thus she broke the news gently. Billy looked the men over one by one.

He turned a slow red.

"Huh!" he observed at last. "I thought they was goin' to wo'k fo' me!"

"Did you?" asked Molly sweetly. "Well, they're not; at least, not now."

That was categorical. Billy's wits did not respond to this sort of emergency very quickly. He did not want to be rude; he did not care to lose his men. Molly looked down.

"Come here and tie my shoestring," she commanded, holding out her foot, and gripping the harness with both hands.

Billy did not remember that he had ever seen so small a foot. He looked, fascinated.

"Well!" she said impatiently.

He raised his head and gazed plump into the imperious depths of a pair of blue eyes. His anger melted. He approached and attempted to tie the shoe.

None but Molly ever knew how hard that horse was kicked by the other little shoe. Indeed, no one knew at all how it happened. Some of the eye-witnesses theorized concerning b.u.mblebees. Others said horseflies.

As to the main facts, there was no doubt--that he, the horse, gave a sudden startled plunge; that she, the girl, screamed slightly and started to fall; that he, Billy Knapp, caught her full in his arms, held her the fraction of a second, and set her lightly back on the again motionless animal.

Molly caught her breath and steadied herself on Billy's shoulder.

Three men officiously held the horse's head.

"My!" she gasped. "I'd like to be as strong as that!"

Billy whirled on the axe gang with a great bl.u.s.ter.