第20章

MISS GEORGIE HOWARD, OPERATOR

"Where is the delightful Mr. Good Indian off to?" Evadna stopped drumming upon the gatepost and turned toward the person she heard coming up behind her, who happened to be Gene. He stopped to light a match upon the gate and put his cigarette to work before he answered her; and Evadna touched tentatively the wide, blue ribbon wound round her arm and tied in a bow at her elbow, and eyed him guardedly.

"Straight up, he told me," Gene answered sourly. "He's sore over something that happened last night, and he didn't seem to have any talk to give away this morning. He can go to the dickens, for all I care.""WHAT--happened last night?" Evadna wore her Christmas-angel expression; and her tone was the sweet, insipid tone of childlike innocence.

Gene hesitated. It seemed a sheer waste of opportunity to tell her the truth when she would believe a falsehood just as readily;but, since the truth happened to be quite as improbable as a lie, he decided to speak it.

"There was a noise when the moon had just come up--didn't you hear it? The ghost I told you about. Good Injun went after it with a gun, and I guess they mixed, all right, and he got the worst of it. He was sure on the fight when he came back, and he's pulled out this morning--""Do you mean to tell me--did you see it, really?""Well, you ask Clark, when you see him," Gene hinted darkly.

"You just ask him what was in the grove last night. Ask him what he HEARD." He moved closer, and laid his hand impressively upon her arm. Evadna winced perceptibly. "What yuh jumping for? You didn't see anything, did you?""No; but--was there REALLY something?" Evadna freed herself as unobtrusively as possible, and looked at him with wide eyes.

"You ask Clark. He'll tell you--maybe. Good Injun's scared clean off the ranch--you can see that for yourself. He said he couldn't be hired to spend another night here. He thinks it's a bad sign. That's the Injun of it. They believe in spirits and signs and things."Evadna turned thoughtful. "And didn't he tell you what he--that is, if he found out--you said he went after it--""He wouldn't say a blamed thing about it," Gene complained sincerely. "He said there wasn't anything--he told us it was a screech-owl.""Oh!" Evadna gave a sigh of relief. "Well, I'm going to ask Clark what it was--I'm just crazy about ghost stories, only Inever would DARE leave the house after dark if there are funny noises and things, really. I think you boys must be the bravest fellows, to sleep out there--without even your mother with you!"She smiled the credulous smile of ignorant innocence and pulled the gate open.

"Jack promised to take me up to Hartley to-day," she explained over her shoulder. "When I come back, you'll show me just where it was, won't you, Gene? You don't suppose it would walk in the grove in the daytime, do you? Because I'm awfully fond of the grove, and I do hope it will be polite enough to confine its perambulations entirely to the conventional midnight hour."Gene did not make any reply. Indeed, he seemed wholly absorbed in staring after her and wondering just how much or how little of it she meant.

Evadna looked back, midway between the gate and the stable, and, when she saw him standing exactly as she had left him, she waved her hand and smiled. She was still smiling when she came up to where Jack was giving those last, tentative twitches and pats which prove whether a saddle is properly set and cinched; and she would not say what it was that amused her. All the way up the grade, she smiled and grew thoughtful by turns; and, when Jack mentioned the fact that Good Indian had gone off mad about something, she contented herself with the simple, unqualified statement that she was glad of it.

Grant's horse dozed before the store, and Grant himself sat upon a bench in the narrow strip of shade on the porch. Evadna, therefore, refused absolutely to dismount there, though her errand had been a post-office money order. Jack was already on the ground when she made known her decision; and she left him in the middle of his expostulations and rode on to the depot. He followed disapprovingly afoot; and, when she brought her horse to a stand, he helped her from the saddle, and took the bridle reins with an air of weary tolerance.

"When you get ready to go home, you can come to the store," he said bluntly. "Huckleberry wouldn't stand here if you hog-tied him. Just remember that if you ever ride up here alone--it might save you a walk back. And say," he added, with a return of his good-natured grin, "it looks like you and Good Injun didn't get acquainted yesterday. I thought I saw mum give him an introduction to you--but I guess I made a mistake. When you come to the store, don't let me forget, and I'll do it myself.""Oh, thank you, Jack--but it isn't necessary," chirped Evadna, and left him with the smile which he had come to regard with vague suspicion of what it might hide of her real feelings.

Two squaws sat cross-legged on the ground in the shade of the little red depot; and them she passed by hastily, her eyes upon them watchfully until she was well upon the platform and was being greeted joyfully by Miss Georgie Howard, then in one of her daily periods of intense boredom.

"My, my, but you're an angel of deliverance--and by rights you should have a pair of gauze wings, just to complete the picture,"she cried, leading her inside and pushing her into a beribboned wicker rocker. "I was just getting desperate enough to haul in those squaws out there and see if I couldn't teach 'em whist or something." She sat down and fingered her pompadour absently.

"And that sure would have been interesting," she added musingly.