Hidden Creek Part 3

d.i.c.kie, moving uncertainly beside her, murmured, "Like the inside of a cold flame, a very white flame."

Sheila turned her chin, pointed above the fur collar of her coat, and included him in the searching and astonished wideness of her look.

"You work at The Aura, don't you?" she asked with childlike _brusquerie_.

d.i.c.kie's sensitive, undecided mouth settled into mournfulness. He looked away.

"Yes, ma'am," he said plaintively.

Sheila's widened eyes, still fixed upon him, began to embarra.s.s him. A flush came up into his face.

She moved her look across him and away to the range.

"It _is_ like that," she said--"like a cold flame, going up--how did you think of that?"

d.i.c.kie looked quickly, gratefully at her. "I kind of felt," he said lamely, "that I had got to find out what it was like. But"--he shook his head with his deprecatory smile--"but that don't tell it, Miss Arundel.

It's more than that." He smiled again. "I bet you, you could think of somethin' better to say about it, couldn't you?"

Sheila laughed. "What a funny boy you are! Not like the others. You don't even look like them. How old are you? When I first saw you I thought you were quite grown up. But you can't be much more than nineteen."

"Just that," he said, "but I'll be twenty next month."

"You've always lived here in Millings?"

"Yes, ma'am. Do you like it? I mean, do you like Millings? I hope you do."

Sheila pressed her m.u.f.f against her mouth and looked at him over it. Her eyes were s.h.i.+ning as though the moonlight had got into their misty grayness. She shook her head; then, as his face fell, she began to apologize.

"Your father has been so awfully kind to me. I am so grateful. And the girls are awfully good to me. But, Millings, you know?--I wouldn't have told you," she said half-angrily, "if I hadn't been so sure you hated it."

They had come to the edge of the mesa, and there below shone the small, scattered lights of the town. The graphophone was playing in the saloon.

Its music--some raucous, comic song--insulted the night.

"Why, no," said d.i.c.kie, "I don't hate Millings. I never thought about it that way. It's not such a bad place. Honest, it isn't. There's lots of fine folks in it. Have you met Jim Greely?"

"Why, no, but I've seen him. Isn't that Girlie's--'fellow'?"

d.i.c.kie made round, respectful eyes. He was evidently very much impressed.

"Say!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Is that the truth? Girlie's aiming kind of high."

It was not easy to walk side by side on the rutted snow of the road.

Sheila here slipped ahead of him and went on quickly along the middle rut where the horses' hoofs had beaten a pitted path.

She looked back at him over her shoulder with a sort of malice.

"Is it aiming high?" she said. "Girlie is much more beautiful than Jim Greely."

"Oh, but he's some looker--Jim."

"Do you think so?" she said indifferently, with a dainty touch of scorn.

d.i.c.kie staggered physically from the shock of her speech. She had been speaking--was it possible?--of Jim Greely....

"I mean Mr. James Greely, the son of the president of the Millings National Bank," he said painstakingly, and a queer confusion came to him that the words were his feet and that neither were under his control.

Also, he was not sure that he had said "Natural," or "National."

"I do mean Mr. James Greely," Sheila's clear voice came back to him. "He is, I should think, a very great hero of yours."

"Yes, ma'am," said d.i.c.kie.

Astonished at the abject humility of his tone, Sheila stopped and turned quite around to look at him. He seemed to be floundering in and out of invisible holes in the snow. He stepped very high, plunged, put out his hand, and righted himself by her shoulder. And he stayed there, lurched against her for a moment. She shook him off and began to run down the hill. His breath had struck her face. She knew that he was drunk.

d.i.c.kie followed her as fast as he could. Several times he fell, but, on the whole, he made fairly rapid progress, so that, by the time she dashed into the Hudsons' gate, he was only a few steps behind her and caught the gate before it shut. Sheila fled up the steps and beat at the door with her fist. d.i.c.kie was just behind her.

Sylvester himself opened the door. Back of him pressed Babe.

"Why, say," she said, "it's Sheila and she's got a beau already. You're some girl--"

"Please let me in," begged Sheila; "I--I am frightened. It's your brother, d.i.c.kie--but I think--there's something wrong--"

Sylvester put his hand on her and pushed her to one side.

He strode out on the small porch. d.i.c.kie wavered before him on the top step.

"I thought I'd make the ac-acquaintance of the young lady," he began doubtfully. "I saw her admiring at the stars and I--"

"Oh, you did!" snarled Hudson. "All right. Now go and make acquaintance with the bottom step." He thrust a long, hard hand at d.i.c.kie's chest, and the boy fell backward, clattering ruefully down the steps with a rattle of thin knees and elbows. At the bottom he lay for a minute, painfully huddled in the snow.

"Go in, Miss Sheila," said Sylvester. "I'm sorry my son came home to-night and frightened you. He usually has more sense. He'll have more sense next time."

He ran down the steps, but before he could reach the huddled figure it gathered itself fearfully together and fled, limping and staggering across the yard, through the gate and around the corner of the street.

Hudson came up, breathing hard.

"Where's Sheila?" he asked sharply.

"She ran upstairs," said Babe. "Ain't it a shame? What got into d.i.c.k?"

"Something that will get kicked out of him good and proper to-morrow,"

said his father grimly.

He stood at the bottom of the steep, narrow stairs, looking up, his hands thrust into his pockets, his under lip stuck out. His eyes were unusually gentle and pensive.

"I wouldn't 'a' had her scared that way for anything," he said, "not for anything. That's likely to spoil all my plans."

He swore under his breath, wheeled about, and going into the parlor he shut the door and began walking to and fro. Babe crept rather quietly up the stairs. There were times when even Babe was afraid of "Poppa."