"Why, I'd been ridin' out with her--ridin' to school, ridin' from school, and a-comin' and a-goin', and she chattin' cheerful and askin' me a heap o' questions all about myself every day, and I not lyin' much neither. And so I figured she wouldn't mind. Lots of 'em like it. But she didn't, you bet!"
"No," said the Virginian, deeply proud of his lady who had slighted him. He had pulled her out of the water once, and he had been her unrewarded knight even to-day, and he felt his grievance; but he spoke not of it to Lin; for he felt also, in memory, her arms clinging round him as he carried her ashore upon his horse. But he muttered, "Plumb ridiculous!" as her injustice struck him afresh, while the outraged McLean told his tale.
"Trample is what she has done on me to-night, and without notice.
We was startin' to come here; Taylor and Mrs. were ahead in the buggy, and I was holdin' her horse, and helpin' her up in the saddle, like I done for days and days. Who was there to see us?
And I figured she'd not mind, and she calls me an exception! Yu'd ought to've just heard her about Western men respectin' women. So that's the last word we've spoke. We come twenty-five miles then, she scootin' in front, and her horse kickin' the sand in my face.
Mrs. Taylor, she guessed something was up, but she didn't tell."
"Miss Wood did not tell?"
"Not she! She'll never open her head. She can take care of herself, you bet!" The fiddles sounded hilariously in the house, and the feet also. They had warmed up altogether, and their dancing figures crossed the windows back and forth. The two cow-punchers drew near to a window and looked in Gloomily.
"There she goes," said Lin.
"With Uncle Hughey again," said the Virginian, sourly. "Yu' might suppose he didn't have a wife and twins, to see the way he goes gambollin' around.
"Westfall is takin' a turn with her now," said McLean.
"James!" exclaimed the Virginian. "He's another with a wife and fam'ly, and he gets the dancin', too."
"There she goes with Taylor," said Lin, presently.
"Another married man!" the Southerner commented. They prowled round to the store-room, and passed through the kitchen to where the dancers were robustly tramping. Miss Wood was still the partner of Mr. Taylor. "Let's have some whiskey," said the Virginian. They had it, and returned, and the Virginian's disgust and sense of injury grew deeper. "Old Carmody has got her now," he drawled. "He polkas like a landslide. She learns his monkey-faced kid to spell dog and cow all the mawnin'. He'd ought to be tucked up cosey in his bed right now, old Carmody ought."
They were standing in that place set apart for the sleeping children; and just at this moment one of two babies that were stowed beneath a chair uttered a drowsy note. A much louder cry, indeed a chorus of lament, would have been needed to reach the ears of the parents in the room beyond, such was the noisy volume of the dance. But in this quiet place the light sound caught Mr.
McLean's attention, and he turned to see if anything were wrong.
But both babies were sleeping peacefully.
"Them's Uncle Hughey's twins," he said.
"How do you happen to know that?" inquired the Virginian, suddenly interested.
"Saw his wife put 'em under the chair so she could find 'em right off when she come to go home."
"Oh," said the Virginian, thoughtfully. "Oh, find 'em right off.
Yes. Uncle Hughey's twins." He walked to a spot from which he could view the dance. "Well," he continued, returning, "the schoolmarm must have taken quite a notion to Uncle Hughey. He has got her for this quadrille." The Virginian was now speaking without rancor; but his words came with a slightly augmented drawl, and this with him was often a bad omen. He none turned his eyes upon the collected babies wrapped in various colored shawls and knitted work. "Nine, ten, eleven, beautiful sleepin' strangers," he counted, in a sweet voice. "Any of 'em yourn, Lin?"
"Not that I know of," grinned Mr. McLean "Eleven, twelve. This hyeh is little Christopher in the blue-stripe quilt--or maybe that other yello'-head is him. The angels have commenced to drop in on us right smart along Bear Creek, Lin."
"What trash are yu' talkin' anyway?"
"If they look so awful alike in the heavenly gyarden," the gentle Southerner continued, "I'd just hate to be the folks that has the cuttin' of 'em out o' the general herd. And that's a right quaint notion too," he added softly. "Them under the chair are Uncle Hughey's, didn't you tell me?" And stooping, he lifted the torpid babies and placed them beneath a table. "No, that ain't thorough," he murmured. With wonderful dexterity and solicitude for their wellfare, he removed the loose wrap which was around them, and this soon led to an intricate process of exchange. For a moment Mr. McLean had been staring at the Virginian, puzzled.
Then, with a joyful yelp of enlightenment, he sprang to abet him.
And while both busied themselves with the shawls and quilts, the unconscious parents went dancing vigorously on, and the small, occasional cries of their progeny did not reach them.
