They Of The High Trails Part 22

"What do you mean?"

"I mean--letting them do all the hard and disagreeable work."

Kelley interposed. "Don't you worry about us, miss. We aren't complaining. We can't do the part he does. He does all the buying and selling--and--correspondence--and the like of that. But come, it's pretty near noon. I reckon we'd better drift along to Mrs. Finnegan's.

The first table is bad enough in our boarding-place."

Again Fred took his mother and left Kelley to lead the way with Florence.

"Now, Mr. Kelley," began the girl, "I must tell you that I don't believe my brother has a thing to do with this mine except to divide the profits. Furthermore, you are trying to cover something up from me.

You're doing it very well, but you've made one or two little 'catches'

which have disturbed me. My brother has never mentioned you or Hank in his letters, and that's unnatural. He told us he was interested in a mine which was paying one hundred and fifty dollars a month. Now, why did he say that? I'll tell you why. It's because you pay him a salary and he's not really a partner." She paused to watch his face, then went on. "Now what does he do--what can he do to earn five dollars per day?

His palms are as soft as silk--the only callous is on his right forefinger."

Kelley's face, schooled to impa.s.sivity, remained unchanged, but his eyes s.h.i.+fted. His astonishment was too great to be entirely concealed.

"There's a whole lot of running--and figuring--and so on."

"Not with that little mine. Why, you can't employ more than five men!"

"Six," corrected Kelley, proudly.

"Well, six. You can't afford to pay my brother five dollars a day just to run errands and keep accounts for these six men. You're fooling him.

You're paying him a salary out of sheer good nature because you like him. Deny it if you can!"

Kelley looked back to see that Fred was well out of earshot. "He _is_ mighty good company," he admitted.

"There!" she exclaimed, triumphantly. "You can't fool me. I knew there was something queer about this whole arrangement." Then her voice changed. "It's very, very kind of you, Mr. Kelley, and I deeply appreciate it, and if you don't want me to do it--I will not let mother into our secret."

"What's the use? He's happier being called a partner."

"Very well--we'll let it go that way."

Thereafter her manner changed. She was more thoughtful; she looked at him with softer eyes. It seemed to her very wonderful, this friends.h.i.+p between a rough, big man and her brother, who had always been something of a scapegrace at home. Her own regard for Kelley deepened. "Men aren't such brutes, after all."

Her smile was less mocking, her jests less pointed, as she sat at Mrs.

Finnegan's long table and ate boiled beef and cabbage and drank the simmered hay which they called tea. She was opposite Kelley this time, and could study him to better advantage.

Kelley, on his part, was still very uneasy. The girl's uncanny penetration had pressed so clearly to the heart of his secret that he feared the hours which remained. "I'm at the end of my rope," he inwardly admitted. "She'll catch me sure unless I can get away from her."

Nevertheless, he wondered a little and was a trifle chagrined when the girl suddenly turned from him to her brother. He was a little uneasy thereat, for he was certain she would draw from the youngster some admissions that would lead to a full confession.

As a matter of fact, she sought her brother's knowledge of Kelley. "Tell me about him, Fred. Where did you meet him first? He interests me."

"Well," Morse answered, cautiously, "I don't know exactly. I used to see him come down the hill of an evening after his mail, and I kind of took a s.h.i.+ne to him and he did to me. At least that's what he said afterward.

He has had a wonderful career. He's been all over Arizona and New Mexico alone. He's been arrested for a bandit and almost killed as city marshal, and he has been a.s.sociated with a band of cattle-rustlers. Oh, you should get him talking. He nearly died of thirst in the desert once, and a snake bit him in the Navajo country, and he lay sick for weeks in a Hopi town."

"What a singular life! Is he satisfied with it?"

"He says he is. He declares he is never so happy as when he is leading a pack-horse across the range."

"I don't wonder you like him," she said, thoughtfully. "But you should do your part. Don't let him be always the giver and you the taker. I'm afraid you s.h.i.+rk on him a little, Fred."

"Why? What makes you think that?"

"Well, your hands are pretty soft for a working miner."

He met her attack bravely. "You don't suppose we do all the pick work in the mine, do you?"

"No. I don't see how you could possibly do any of it. Come now, Freddy, ''fess up.' You've been playing the gentleman in this enterprise and all this make-up is for our benefit, isn't it?"

Young Morse saw that the safest plan was to admit the truth of her surmise. "Oh, well, I never did have any hand in the actual mining, but then there is plenty of other work to be done."

Her answer was sharp and clear: "Well, then, do it! Don't be a drone."

Something very plain and simple and boyish came out in the young gambler as he walked and talked with his mother and sister, and Kelley regarded him with some amazement and much humor. It only proved that every man, no matter how warlike he pretends to be in public, is in private a weak, sorry soul, dependent on some one; and this youth, so far from being a desperado, was by nature an affectionate son and a loyal brother.

Furthermore, Kelley himself felt very much less the tramp and much more "like folks" than at any time since leaving home ten or fifteen years before. He was careful to minimize all his hobo traits and to correspondingly exalt his legitimate mining and cattle experiences, although he could see that Morse had made Florence curious about the other and more adventurous side of his career.

Florence was now determined to make a study of the town. "I like it up here," she said, as she looked down over the tops of the houses. "It interests me, Fred; I propose that you keep us all night."

"Oh, we can't do that!" exclaimed her brother, hastily. "We haven't room."

"Well, there's a hotel, I should hope."

"A hotel--yes. But it is a pretty bad hotel. You see, it's sort of run down--like the town."

This did not seem to disturb her. Rather, it added to her interest. "No matter. We can stand it one night. I want to see the place. I would like to see a little of its street life to-night. It's all so new and strange to me."

Kelley, perceiving that she was determined upon this stop-over, and fearing that the attempt to railroad her out of town on the afternoon train might add to her suspicions, then said:

"I think we can find a place for you if you feel like staying."

Morse was extremely uneasy, and Florence remarked upon it. "You don't seem overflowing with hospitality, Fred. You don't seem anxious to have us stay on for another day."

He s.h.i.+fted his weight from one foot to the other. "Well, it's a pretty rough old village, Flo--a pretty rough place for you and mother."

"We are not alarmed so long as we have you and Mr. Kelley as our protectors," she replied, smiling sweetly upon Tall Ed.

They had reached the car-line by this time, and were standing looking down the valley, and Fred, pulling out his watch, remarked: "You just have time to make that three-o'clock train. That will connect you with the night express for Los Angeles."

"Fred, what's the matter with you?" queried his sister, sharply. "You seem absolutely determined to get rid of us at once." Then, seeing that she had perhaps gone a little too far, she said, with a smile, "Mother, isn't he the loving son?"

The youth surrendered to her will and dropped all opposition. He appeared to welcome their decision to wait over another day; but Kelley busied himself with thinking how he could ward off any undesired information which might approach the two women--the mother especially.

It would be quite wonderful if, with another twenty-four hours to spend, Florence did not get Fred's secret from him.

He decided to put the matter squarely before her, and when they took the car arranged to have her sit beside him in a seat across the aisle from the mother and son, and almost immediately began his explanation by saying, very significantly:

"I reckon the boy is right, Miss Morse. You had better take that three-o'clock train."