The Round-Up Part 20

"Why, they've all left us."

Jack laughed softly. "So they have--I forgot they were here," he said, looking fondly down at his wife.

Echo began to play quietly another ballad. "I've always wanted a piano," she said.

"You'd found one here waiting, if I'd only known it," he chided.

"You've given me so much already," she murmured. "I've been a big expense to you."

Jack again slipped his arm about her waist and kissed her. "There ain't any limit on my love," he declared. "I want you to be happy--"

"Don't you think I am," laughed Echo. "I'm the happiest woman on earth, Jack, and it's all you. I want to be more than a wife to you, I want to be a helpmate--but you won't let me."

A wistful expression crept over Echo's countenance.

"Who says so?" he demanded playfully, as if he would punish any man who dared make such an accusation.

Echo turned on the stool and took his hand. "I know it," she said, with emphasis. "You've been worried about something for days and days--don't tell me you haven't."

Jack opened his lips as if to contradict her. "We women learn to look beneath the surface; what is it, Jack?" she continued.

Jack loosened his wife's handclasp and walked over to the table.

"Nothing--what should I have to worry about?" He spoke carelessly.

"The mortgage?" suggested Echo.

"I paid that off last week," explained Jack.

Echo felt deeply hurt that this news should have been kept from her by her husband.

"You did, and never told me?" she chided. "Where did you get the money?" she inquired.

"Why, I--" Jack halted. He could not frame an excuse at once, nor invent a new lie to cover his old sin. Deeper and deeper he was getting into the mire of deception.

Echo had arisen from the seat. "It was over three thousand dollars, wasn't it?" she insisted.

"Something like that," answered Jack noncommittally.

"Well, where did you get it?" demanded his wife.

"An old debt--a friend of mine--I loaned him the money a long time ago and he paid it back--that's all."

Jack took a drink of water from the olla to hide his confusion.

"Who was it?" persisted Echo.

"You wouldn't know if I told you. Now just stop talking business."

"It isn't fair," declared Echo. "You share all the good things of life with me, and I want to share some of your business worries. I want to stand my share of the bad."

Jack saw he must humor her. "When the bad comes I'll tell you," he a.s.sured her, patting her hand.

"You stand between me and the world. You're like a great big mountain, standing guard over a little tree in the valley, keeping the cold north wind from treating it too roughly." She sighed contentedly. "But the mountain does it all."

Jack looked down tenderly at his little wife. Her love for him moved him deeply.

"Not at all," he said to her. "The little tree grows green and beautiful. It casts a welcome shade about it, and the heart of the mountain is made glad to its rocky core to know that the safety of that little tree is in its keeping."

Taking her in his arms, he kissed her again and again.

"Kissing again," shouted Polly from the doorway. "Say, will you two never settle down to business? There's Bud Lane and a bunch of others just into the corral--maybe they want you, Jack."

Jack excused himself. As he stepped out on the piazza he asked Polly: "Shall I send Bud in?"

"Let him come in if he wants to. I'm not sending for him." Polly spitefully turned up her nose at him. Jack laughed as he closed the door.

Echo reseated herself at the piano, fingering the keys.

"How are you getting on with Bud?" she asked the younger girl.

"We don't get on a little bit," she snapped. "Bud never seems to collect much revenue an' we just keep trottin' slow like--wish I was married and had a home of my own."

"Aren't you happy with father and mother?"

Polly glanced at Echo with a smile. "Lord, yes," she replied, "in a way, but I'm only a poor relation--your ma was my ma's cousin or something like that."

Echo laughed. "Nonsense," she retorted. "Nonsense--you're my dear sister, and the only daughter that's at the old home now."

"But I want a home of my own, like this," said Polly.

"Then you'd better shake Bud and give Slim a chance."

Polly was too disgusted to answer at once. "Slim Hoover, shucks! Slim doesn't care for girls--he's afraid of 'em," she said at length. "I like Bud, with all his orneriness," she declared.

"Why doesn't he come to see you more often?"

"I don't know, maybe it's because he's never forgiven you for marryin'

Jack."

"Why should he mind that?" she asked, startled.

"Well, you know," she answered between st.i.tches, drawing the needle through the cloth with angry little jerks, "Bud, he never quite believed d.i.c.k was dead."

Echo rose hastily. The vague, haunting half-thoughts of weeks were crystallized on the instant. She felt as if d.i.c.k was trying to speak to her from out of the great beyond. With a shudder she into a chair at the table opposite Polly.

"Don't," she said, her voice scarcely above a whisper, "I can't bear to hear him spoken of. I dreamed of him the other night--a dreadful dream."

Polly was delighted with this new mystery. It was all so romantic.