The Bondboy Part 15

"What's the matter, kid?" inquired Morgan carelessly.

"I've got something to say to you," answered Joe thickly. He was panting, more from rage than exertion; his hands trembled.

Morgan looked him over from boots to bandless hat with the same evidence of curiosity as a person displays when turning some washed-up object with the foot on the sands. It was as if he had but an abstract interest in the youth, a feeling which the incident had obtruded upon him without penetrating the reserve of his private cogitations.

"Kid, you look like you'd seen a snake," said he.

"You let that woman alone--you've got to let her alone, I tell you!"

said Joe with explosive suddenness, his pa.s.sion out of hand.

Morgan's face grew red.

"Mind your own business, you sneakin' skunk!" said he.

"I am minding it," said Joe; "but maybe not as well as I ought to 'a'

done. Isom left me here in his place to watch and look after things, but you've sneaked in under my arm like a dirty, thieving dog, and you've--you've----"

Morgan thrust his fist before Joe's face.

"That'll do now--that'll do out of you!" he threatened.

Joe caught Morgan's wrist with a quick, snapping movement, and slowly bent the threatening arm down, Morgan struggling, foot to foot with him in the test of strength. Joe held the captured arm down for a moment, and they stood breast to breast, glaring into each other's eyes. Then with a wrench that spun Morgan half round and made him stagger, Joe flung his arm free.

"Now, you keep away from here--keep away!" he warned, his voice growing thin and boyish in the height of his emotion, as if it would break in the treble shallows.

"Don't fool with me or I'll hurt you," said Morgan. "Keep your nose----"

"Let her alone!" commanded Joe sternly, his voice sinking again even below its accustomed level, gruff and deep in his chest. "I heard you--I didn't mean to, but I couldn't help it--and I know what you're up to tonight. Don't come around here tonight after her, for I'm not going to let her go."

"Ya-a, you pup, you pup!" said Morgan nastily.

"It's a hard life for her here--I know that better than you do," said Joe, pa.s.sing over the insult, "but you can't give her any better--not as good. What you've done can't be undone now, but I can keep you from dragging her down any further. Don't you come back here tonight!"

"If you keep your fingers out of the fire," said Morgan, looking at the ground, rolling a fallen apple with his toe, "you'll not get scorched.

You stick to your knittin' and don't meddle with mine. That'll be about the healthiest thing you can do!"

"If Isom knew what you've done he'd kill you--if he's even half a man,"

said Joe. "She was a good woman till you came, you hound!"

"She's a good woman yet," said Morgan, with some feeling, "too good for that old h.e.l.l-dog she's married to!"

"Then let her stay good--at least as good as she is," advised Joe.

"Oh, h.e.l.l!" said Morgan disgustedly.

"You can't have her," persisted Joe.

"We'll see about that, too," said Morgan, his manner and voice threatening. "What're you goin' to do--pole off and tell the old man?"

"I'll do what Isom left me here to do, the rest of the time he's away,"

said Joe. "Ollie shan't leave the house tonight."

"Yes, you flat-bellied shad, you want her yourself--you're stuck on her yourself, you fool! Yes, and you've got just about as much show of gittin' her as I have of jumpin' over that tree!" derided Morgan.

"No matter what I think of her, good or bad, she'd be safe with me," Joe told him, searching his face accusingly.

"Yes, of course she would!" scoffed Morgan. "You're one of these saints that'll live all your life by a punkin and never poke it with your finger. Oh, yes, I know your kind!"

"I'm not going to quarrel with you, Morgan, unless you make me," said Joe; "but you've got the wrong end of the stick. I don't want her, not the way you do, anyhow."

Morgan looked at him closely, then put out his hand with a gesture of conciliation.

"I'll take that back, Joe," said he. "You're not that kind of a kid. You mean well, but you don't understand. Look-a here, let me tell you, Joe: I love that little woman, kid, just as honest and true as any man could love her, and she thinks the world and all of me. I only want to take her away from here because I love her and want to make her happy. Don't you see it, kid?"

"How would you do that? You couldn't marry her."

"Not for a while, of course," admitted Morgan. "But the old possum he'd get a divorce in a little while."

"Well, I'm not going to let her go," Joe declared, turning away as if that settled the matter for good and all. "You've done--I could kill you for what you've done!" said he, with sudden vehemence.

Morgan looked at him curiously, his careless face softening.

"Now, see here, don't you look at it that way, Joe," he argued. "I'm not so bad; neither is Ollie. You'll understand these matters better when you're older and know more about the way men feel. She wanted love, and I gave her love. She's been worked to rags and bones by that old devil; and what I've done, and what I want to do, is in kindness, Joe. I'll take her away from here and provide for her like she was a queen, I'll give her the love and comrades.h.i.+p of a young man and make her happy, Joe. Don't you see?"

"But you can't make her respectable," said Joe. "I'm not going to let her leave with you, or go to you. If she wants to go after Isom comes back, then let her. But not before. Now, you'd better go on away, Morgan, before I lose my temper. I was mad when I started after you, but I've cooled down. Don't roil me up again. Go on your way, and leave that woman alone."

"Joe, you're a man in everything but sense," said Morgan, not unkindly, "and I reckon if you and I was to clinch we'd raise a purty big dust and muss things around a right smart. And I don't know who'd come out on top at the finish, neither. So I don't want to have any trouble with you.

All I ask of you is step to one side and leave us two alone in what we've started to do and got all planned to carry out. Go to bed tonight and go to sleep. You're not supposed to know that anything's due to happen, and if you sleep sound you'll find a twenty-dollar bill under your hat in the morning."

The suggestion brought a blush to Joe's face. He set his lips as if fighting down hot words before he spoke.

"If I have to tie her I'll do it," said Joe earnestly. "She shan't leave. And if I have to take down that old gun from the kitchen wall to keep you away from here till Isom comes home, I'll take it down. You can come to the gate tonight if you want to, but if you do----"

Joe looked him straight in the eyes. Morgan's face lost its color. He turned as if to see that his horse was still standing, and stood that way a little while.

"I guess I'll drive on off, Joe," said Morgan with a sigh, as if he had reached the conclusion after a long consideration.

"All right," said Joe.

"No hard feelin's left behind me?" facing Joe again with his old, self-a.s.sured smile. He offered his hand, but Joe did not take it.

"As long as you never come back," said Joe.

Morgan walked to the fence, his head bent, thoughtfully. Joe followed, as if to satisfy himself that the wily agent was not going to work some subterfuge, having small faith in his promise to leave, much less in the probability that he would stay away.

Joe stood at the fence, looking after Morgan, long after the dust of his wheels had settled again to the road. At last he went back to the place where he had dropped his scythe, and cut a swath straight through to the tree where Ollie's bonnet had hung. And there he mowed the trampled clover, and obliterated her footprints with his own.

The weight of his discovery was like some dead thing on his breast. He felt that Ollie had fallen from the high heaven of his regard, never to mount to her place again. But Isom did not know of this bitter thing, this shameful shadow at his door. As far as it rested with him to hold the secret in his heart, poison though it was to him, Isom should never know.