"If their letter brings him, Mike," he said, "don't you fail to let me know."
"Aye, aye," promised the pilot, earnestly.
They parted. Old Michael continued his way with an easy mind. But Lounsbury was troubled. Instead of carrying—as on his former visit—good news to the little family on the bend, he must now be the bearer of evil.
And when, having stalled his horse with Ben and Betty, he entered the cottonwood shack, his heart smote him still more. For, secretly, he had hoped that he was to tell them what they already knew. But it seemed precisely the reverse. There was nothing in the appearance and actions of the Lancasters that suggested anxiety. The section-boss, though his manner was not without a certain reserve (as if he half believed something was about to be wormed out of him), greeted Lounsbury good-naturedly enough. Marylyn hurried up in a timid flutter to take his cap and coat. While, facing him from the hearth-side, her hair coiled upon her head like a crown, her grey eyes bright, her cheeks glowing, was a new Dallas.
"Well, how've you all been?" asked Lounsbury, accepting a bench.
"Oh, spright 'nough," answered the section-boss. "But it's cold, it's cold. Keeps me tremblin' like a guilty nigger."
"You'll get over that," assured the other, rubbing the blood into his hands. "It's natural for you to be soft as chalk-rock the first winter—you've been living South."
"Ah reckon," agreed Lancaster. He sat down beside the younger man, eyeing him closely. "How d' y' come t' git away fr'm business?" he queried.
"Well, you see," Lounsbury answered, "I've got an A 1 man in my Bismarck store, and at Clark's there's nothing to do week days, hardly. So I just took some tobacco to Skinney's, where the boys could get at it, and loped down here." Then, playfully, "But I don't see much happening in these parts." He stretched toward a window. "The town of Lancaster ain't growing very fast."
Dallas, seated on a bench with Marylyn, looked across at him smilingly. "I'm glad of it," she declared. "We ain't used to towns."
"You folks've never lived in one?"
"No—we never even been in one."
He puckered his forehead. "Funny," he said. "Somehow, I always think of you two as town girls."
"Aw, shucks!" exclaimed Lancaster, scowling.
But Dallas was leaning forward, interested. "That's on account of our teachers," she said. "There was a school-house up the track, in Texas, and we went to it on the hand-car. Every year we had a different teacher, and all of 'em came from big Eastern places like New Orleans or St. Louis. So—so you see, we kinda got towny from our school-ma'ams."
"One had a gold tooth," put in Marylyn. Her eyes, wide with recollection, were fixed upon Lounsbury.
"But you passed through cities coming north," argued the storekeeper.
"N-n-no," said Dallas, slowly; "we—we skirted 'em."
"What a pity!" He turned to the section-boss.
"Pity!" echoed the latter. "Huh! You save you' pity. My gals is better off ef they don' meet no town hoodlums."
It had been "soldier trash" before; now, it was "town hoodlums." Lounsbury wondered why he had been allowed a second call. He glanced at the girls. There was a sudden shadow on each young face. He changed to the fire, and looked hard at it. How cut off they were! Where was their happiness—except in their home? And could he tell them even that was threatened?
"Not by a long shot!" he vowed. "I'll trust Old Michael."
He set himself to being agreeable, and especially toward the section-boss. He told of the Norwegian at Medicine Mountain, and of the old man who lived with wife and children at the "little bend" up the river; he admired the Navajo blankets, and explained their symbolic figures of men, animals and suns; he leaned back, clasping a knee, and branched into comical stories.
The little shack awoke to unaccustomed merriment. Lancaster warmed to the storekeeper's genial attentions, and burst into frequent guffaws; Dallas and Marylyn followed his every word, breaking in, from time to time, with little gleeful laughs.
But in the midst of it, there came from outside a startling interruption: Shouts, and a loud, pistol-like cracking, powdery swirls over the windows, a frightened lowing, and heavy thumps against the shack.
The noise without produced a change within. Incredibly agile, Lancaster got to a pane. While Dallas, springing up, screened Marylyn, and waited, as if in suspense.
Dark bulks now shot past, pursued by mounted men. And very soon the herd was gone, and all was again quiet. Then followed a moment that was full of embarrassment. Keenly, Lounsbury looked from father to daughter, the one striving to assume an easy air, the other incapable of hiding alarm. All at once, he felt certain they shared Old Michael's information. He determined to tell them that he, too, knew what and whom they feared.
"Expecting someone, Miss Dallas?" he asked tentatively.
The section-boss hastened to answer. "Expectin' nothin'," he snapped. Then, to cut short any further questioning, "Dallas, y' clean forgot them mules t'-day. Lawd help us! y' goin' t' let 'em starve?"
Lounsbury sat quiet, realising that the team was but a pretext. The elder girl found her cloak, picked up a bucket and left the room. Marylyn shrank into the dusk at the hearth-side. Lancaster was hobbling up and down, his crutch-ends digging at the packed dirt of the floor.
The storekeeper, putting aside his determination, went on as though he had not noticed the other's attitude. "The storm was hard on the stock last night. They must 'a' drifted thirty miles with it. Our loss is big, likely. The punchers'll bunch everything on four hoofs and drive 'em into the coulée. Cows'll be out of the wind there, and live on browse till the ground clears."
But as he was talking, the section-boss made himself ready for the cold; before he had finished, the elder man had disappeared.
Lounsbury was thoroughly provoked at the treatment shown him—he was hurt at the plain lack of faith. Again, he considered what course to pursue. Granted the family knew all he could tell them, what would be gained by forcing the fact of his knowledge upon them? Nothing—unless it were more suspicion against himself. And if they were in ignorance—well, it was better than premature care. As before, he decided to remain silent and depend upon the pilot.
He glanced at Marylyn. On her father's departure, she had moved out of the shadow. Now, she was sitting bolt upright, with fingers touching the bench at either side. Her lips were half parted. She was watching Lounsbury wonderingly.
The moment their eyes met, her own fell. She reached to the mantel for a beaded belt, and began work upon it precipitately.
"What is the prairie princess doing?" he asked.
"Making something." She held the belt by one hand to let it slip through the other.
He reached for it. "My! it's pretty! Wish you'd make me a watch-fob like that."
She flushed and dimpled. "I'd like to," she said.
"I'll wear it as an amulet." He gave her back the belt, and their hands touched.
She started nervously.
"Why, Miss Marylyn!" he said gently. "You afraid of me?"
"No." It was whispered.
"Well, you mustn't be." His tone was one that might have been used to a child. "Since I rode here a month ago, I've thought of you folks a lot. I'd like to do a real good turn for you. Perhaps it's because you girls seem so lonely——"
"We're not lonely," she declared. "The Fort's near, and we can hear the band. And pa says there'll be three or four steamers go by next summer."
The storekeeper mentally kicked himself. "The idea of suggesting