The Watchers of the Plains Part 14

"It'll be a good year all round, I guess," Seth admitted.

"Yes, I dare say it will be," was the answer.

Rube was intently packing his pipe, and the other waited. Rube's deep-set eyes had lost their customary twinkle. The deliberation with which he was packing his pipe had in it a suggestion of abstraction. Filling a pipe is a process that wonderfully indicates the state of a man's mind.

"Jimmy's worried some. 'Bout the harvest, I guess," Rube said presently, adjusting his pipe in the corner of his mouth, and testing the draw of it.

But his eyes were not raised to his companion's face.

"Injuns ain't workin' well?"

"Mebbe."

"They're a queer lot."

"Ye-es. I was kind o' figgerin'. We're mostly through hayin'."

"I've got another slough to cut."

"That's so. Down at the Red Willow bluff." The old man nodded.

"Yes," a.s.sented Seth. Then, "Wal?"

"After that, guess ther's mostly slack time till harvest. I thought, mebbe, we could jest haul that lumber from Beacon Crossing. And cut the logs. Parker give me the 'permit.' Seems to me we might do wuss."

"For the stockade?" suggested Seth.

"Yes."

"I've thought of that, too." The two men looked into each other's eyes.

And the old man nodded.

"Guess the gals wouldn't want to know," he said, rising and preparing to depart.

"No--I don't think they would."

The hardy old pioneer towered mightily as he moved toward the door. In spite of his years he displayed none of the uneasiness which his words might have suggested. Nothing that frontier life could show him would be new. At least, nothing that he could imagine. But then his imagination was limited. Facts were facts with him; he could not gild them. Seth was practical, too; but he also had imagination, which made him the cleverer man of the two in the frontiersman's craft.

At the door Rube looked round.

"Guess you was goin' to write some?"

He pa.s.sed out with a deep gurgle, as though the fact of Seth's writing was something to afford amus.e.m.e.nt.

Seth turned to the paper and dipped his pen in the ink. Then he wiped it clean on his coat sleeve and dipped it again. After that he headed his paper with much precision. Then he paused, for he heard a light footstep cross the pa.s.sage between the parlor and the kitchen. He sighed in relief as it started up-stairs. But his relief was short-lived. He knew that it was Rosebud. He heard her stop. Then he heard her descend again. The next moment she appeared in the doorway.

"What, Seth writing?" she exclaimed, her laughing eyes trying to look seriously surprised. "I knew you were here by the smell of the smoke."

"Guess it was Rube's." Seth's face relaxed for a moment, then it returned to its usual gravity.

"Then it must have been that pipe you gave him the other night," she returned quick as thought.

Seth shook his head.

"Here it is," he said, and drew a pipe from his pocket. "He 'lowed he hadn't no n.i.g.g.e.r blood in him."

"Too strong?"

"Wal--he said he had scruples."

Rosebud laughed, and came and perched herself on the edge of Seth's table.

He leant back in his chair and smiled up at her. Resignation was his only refuge. Besides--

"So you're writing, Seth," the girl said, and her eyes had become really serious. They were deep, deep now, the violet of them was almost black in the evening light. "I wonder----"

Seth shook his head.

"n.o.body yet," he said.

"You mean I'm to go away?" Rosebud smiled, but made no attempt to move.

"Guess I ain't in no hurry."

"Well, I'm glad of that. And you're not grumpy with me either, are you?

No?" as Seth shook his head. "That's all right, then, because I want to talk to you."

"That's how I figgered."

"You're always figuring, Seth. You figure so much in your own quiet way that I sometimes fancy you haven't time to look at things which don't need calculating upon. I suppose living near Indians all your life makes you look very much ahead. I wonder--what you see there. You and Rube."

"Guess you're side-tracked," Seth replied uneasily, and turning his attention to the blank paper before him.

The girl's face took on a little smile. Her eyes shone again as she contemplated the dark head of the man who was now unconscious of her gaze.

There was a tender look in them. The old madcap in her was taming. A something looked out of her eyes now which certainly would not have been there had the man chanced to look up. But he didn't. The whiteness of the paper seemed to absorb all his keenest interest.

"I rather think you always fancy I'm side-tracked, Seth," the girl said at last. "You don't think I have a serious thought in my foolish head."

Seth looked up now and smiled.

"Guess you've always been a child to me," he said. "An' kiddies ain't bustin' with brain--generly. However, I don't reckon you're foolish. 'Cep'

when you git around that Reservation," he added thoughtfully.

There was a brief silence. The man avoided the violet eyes. He seemed afraid to look at them. Rosebud's presence somehow made things hard for him. Seth was a man whom long years of a life fraught with danger had taught that careful thought must be backed up by steady determination.

There must be no wavering in any purpose. And this girl's presence made him rebel against that purpose he had in his mind now.

"That has always been a trouble between us, hasn't it?" Rosebud said at last. And her quiet manner drew her companion's quick attention. "But it shan't be any more."

The man looked up now; this many-sided girl could still astonish him.