Page:The Overland Monthly, Jan-June 1894.djvu/227



1894.J

After the Fire-

163

" Yes," said Humphrey, " I hear you are wanted at the Drews, next week."

"I intend to be there, too, if I don't get lost."

" What 's going to happen anyhow ? horse trade ? "

" No ; the old man is going to take me for a son-in-law. He thinks Annie will get even with me for that lame horse I sold him two years ago, and maybe she will. I am willing to try it."

This was what Humphrey wanted him to say, and he directed a meaning look at Bessie ; but her indifferent glance rested upon the speaker, and he could not see that she was in any way impressed. But Mrs. Riordan was, and congratulated the young man, saying in continuation that as Miss Drew was a great favorite, he must have made a good deal of heartache among his rivals when he won her hand.

Then Bessie looked at Humphrey with an elaborate expression of compas- sion which he found very irritating.

" I don't know about that," said the prospective groom, in answer to Mrs. Riordan. " We have been engaged two years, and I haven't had the heartache any myself."

The latter part of this statement set Humphrey to wondering if the organ in question would have been disturbed had the owner known of some things said by and to the object of his affections, and he decided that it would not be shaken out of its self-sufficiency by any such trifles as that.

The elder man said he must push on to town, and get a few necessities for the " old woman" and the children ; they had been living on meat without salt for more than a week.

" How does it come that you are not on the road, Mason ? " he asked.

"I told Jim Barker to take the mail down if I did n't get back. It was pretty rough getting out here yesterday, and I got burned some."

" You will not go back with us, then ? "

"No, I'll wait a while yet."

"Well, I don't know but it is well worth while." The younger man slapped him on the shoulder, and grinned in a manner intended to be knowing, as they made their adieux.

VIII.

BESSIE did not seem inclined to give Humphrey any chance for explanations, but he was a, young person of prompt- ness and determination, and after a time said boldly that he wanted to talk to her, suiting the action to his words by guiding her up the path and over to the other side of the clearing, where they sat on the bank and watched the water fall coolly over a big flat stone into an eddying pool.

" This is an excellent place to fish. See them in the pool there ! " Bessie exclaimed with enthusiasm.

" The fish I want is not very far away, but I don't seem to be a lucky fisher- man," said Humphrey clumsily. He knew it was clumsy, and hated himself accordingly.

" Perhaps you don't have good bait," was Bessie's instant and apparently in- nocent reply.

" Perhaps not. Perhaps it does n't dance around enough, nor sing pretty ditties, nor fan them with its hat, nor make a fool of itself generally enough !" answered he with scorn so earnest that his metaphor which was a form of elo- quence with which he was very little familiar got quite mixed.

" Perhaps it is not may be it is a lit- tle stale, some fish are particular." She suggested this with a most impartial manner, tossing a pebble into the pool, scaring the trout into the shadow, and bringing Humphrey's native directness to the front in self-defense.

" Bessie, is it possible that you still believe that I made love to Nan Drew, or thought of marrying her ? "

" I knew last Tuesday that this man