CHAPTER XII

A rain lasting three days delayed Bud Childers. But with the cards he now held he could afford to wait. Moreover, he found himself interested in a new occupation. He could use this time to advantage in preparing the shack for his prospective bride.

It is doubtful if any woman in the world save Roxie could have roused in him such an ambition. This log house, substantially as it stood to-day, had been adequate for him, for his father, for his father’s father, and all the women who incidentally had lived here. He was ready to maintain that it was good enough for any one--except Roxie. It was essentially good enough for her. But living with the Howes had made her fussy. And she was a little different, anyway. She liked purty things and clean things.

The building was a one-story affair made of hewn trees with the bark on. In the course of time much of this had fallen off leaving the bare wood now weatherbeaten, showing a dull grayish brown. A flimsy porch stood before it, the roof supported by posts of young chestnut-oaks. A board door opened into the main living-room. This was finished roughly with planed boards, but made rather attractive by a stone fireplace blackened by the smoke from countless fires. Here Bud did most of his cooking, though a room in the rear was intended to be a kitchen. Near the dog-irons stood a black tin coffee-pot, and on the mantel above were various earthen crocks which had served as cooking-utensils for three generations. A few cane-bottomed straight-back chairs, a table covered with cracked oilcloth, a small stove in the corner, the pipe braced with rusted wires, a rifle and a long-barreled shotgun fastened to the walls, a lithograph torn from an old patent-medicine calendar representing dimly an elderly couple peacefully paring fruit, were the only furnishings. On the wall to the right of the fireplace two doors indicated a cupboard. To the rear, back of this room, was the bedroom containing a four-poster rope bed covered with somewhat frayed and none too clean crazy-quilts above gray blankets. Outside, to the left, and sheltered by the eaves stood the spring-house supplied with the clearest of mountain water.

Bud’s original idea was merely to sweep, but having done that much he went a little farther and applied hot water and soap to the floors, the furniture, and finally to the odds and ends of dishes. This not only filled in the spare time left from his farm duties, but it satisfied a newly developed craving. He was not doing this for himself. He was doing it for Roxie. In a way he was being of service to her. He was relieving her pretty hands from drudgery. But in so doing he was submitting to a standard which seemed to him like damned foolishness--as far as he alone was concerned--and swallowing a goodly amount of stubborn pride. This involved self-sacrifice. He was doing it, moreover, for another. This involved a conception of unselfishness. Bud had never been noted for either quality.

And yet he took a tremendous satisfaction in his efforts. The task proved so congenial that he carried it far beyond his first intention. On the second day he mounted his mare in the rain and posted to the village store. His idea was to buy new oilcloth for the table and a fresh coffee-pot. Before he was done he had included towels, blankets, a cake of scented soap, and a supply of tinned goods.

“Looks like you meant to git married,” suggested Ed Bingham, the storekeeper.

“None o’ yo’ damned business if I am, is it?” frowned Bud.

“No-o,” drawled Bingham with an instant desire to conciliate. “No-o, it ain’t.”

“Then fergit it,” snapped Bud.

If Ed Bingham found this difficult under the circumstances, he managed to give his face the proper expression for registering forgetfulness as long as Bud remained in the store and that sufficed. He had his opportunity to express as freely as he wished his real opinions after Bud cantered off. He made the most of that. As far as Bud was concerned, he might, and be hanged. What was spoken to his face was one thing; what was spoken behind his back another and relatively unimportant matter.

Bud returned to his shack through the pouring rain, carefully protecting his purchases beneath a rubber poncho. Never had he minded less a wet ride, for the little mare’s hoofs sang him a song all the way--a simple song with not much variety, but, to his ears, good to hear. It was merely this:

“Roxie, Roxie, Roxie.”

It ran through his head all the remainder of that day and mixed itself with his restless dreams. It roused him at dawn and was echoed in the twitter of the morning birds greeting so joyously the clear sky. He rose at once with the realization that this morning had a significance of its own; it was the last he would have to face by himself. To-night he was to find Roxie and fetch her up here. That made it seem almost as though she were here now. He washed with considerable attention to details and slicked down his black hair until it lay plastered to his head.

Bud was confident. That was characteristic of his attitude towards any personal venture he undertook alone. It was doubly true of this one in which he was prepared to risk all in order to gain all. He saw no obstacles in his path; could conceive of none which might stop him. His plan was well outlined and simple; he would ride to the Howe shack after dark and leave his horse in the road just below. Then he would circle the house and post himself near the kitchen door in the rear. There he would wait his chance to see Roxie alone. He would not need over five minutes with her because this time he held all the cards. When he was done, she would follow him. No fear about that. She might come like a colt for the first time in halter, but she would come. It mattered little what her temper was at the start. She would tame.

Towards dusk Bud went through the shack once again and put everything in order. Then he took out his gun and examined it to make sure each chamber was loaded. Finally he piled up fresh wood and kindling beside the fireplace in order to have everything ready for a quick blaze. On the table he placed a kerosene lamp and matches. At half-past seven he closed and locked his door and went to the barn for his mare.

It was dark when Bud reached the valley, but he took the rest of the road on a gallop. There were those who later said they remembered hearing him pass.

“Thought it must be some one after the doctor,” said one.

Another thought it was some one loaded with moonshine whiskey. All were glad enough that the mysterious night rider in such a hurry went by without stopping.

Bud picketed the mare in the woods just off the road, not a hundred yards from the spot where Allston a few weeks before had been brought to such an abrupt and unexpected halt. Had Bud been interested he might have seen the tree still showing the scars made by Allston’s machine. But that would have been to stir him up unnecessarily.

Bud trusted to the dark to keep him concealed halfway up the serpentine drive leading to the lighted bungalow, but when within reach of the light cutting a path over the grass, he swerved to the left and made a wide half-circle. From this point he worked his way more cautiously towards the kitchen. The door was open and through it he caught occasional glimpses of a figure flitting back and forth. It was Roxie. His heart, had he been blind, would have told him that. The sight spurred him on--made him resent caution. In another dozen paces he was at the door.

Roxie felt his presence before she saw him. She was hanging near the stove her wet dishcloths. Her back was towards him when suddenly she swung. At sight of him she stood transfixed. In that interval he crossed the room and seized an arm.

“I gut suthin’ to tell yuh,” he said.

As she shrank away he added in a lower, tenser tone:

“I’m _goneter_ tell yuh suthin’.”

She saw then that in his other hand he held his gun. It made her afraid--but not for herself.

“What’s the matter, Bud?” she asked aimlessly.

“Come out hyar an’ I’ll tell yuh.”

She grew suddenly cold. She shook as with the ague. Yet she followed where he led--away from the house across the fields until their voices could not be heard.

“That pink-cheeked fren’ o’ yourn--I seen him t’other day.”

“Mr. Allston?” she trembled.

“Ef thet’s his name. I seen him in the woods a-makin’ up to Miss Wilmer.”

Whatever Roxie had expected, it was no such line of attack as this. She stiffened.

“Yer lie,” she choked.

“I seen him in the cove a-holdin’ her hand,” he went on, quite undisturbed.

“Yer lie, Bud Childers. Yer lie in your throat,” she panted.

“I swear to Gawd I seen him--a-holdin’ her hand.”

“What was you doin’ there?” she demanded, struggling hard against a new emotion that gripped her throat like a strangler’s hold.

“What was I doin’ thar?” he repeated slowly. “What was I doin’ thar? I was passin’ by.”

That was all he said, but from his voice she knew. With a spasmodic shudder she drew back a step. He followed instantly, bending closer to her ear.

“I was passin’ by like I’m passin’ by here,” he said. “But I ain’t used to passin’ by.”

She made no reply. What he said was true. She turned towards the house. He seized her arm again.

“I left him for Miss Wilmer,” he said hoarsely. “She can have the damned honey-lapper an’ welcome. But you--I want you myself.”

“Bud,” she pleaded, her breath coming in gasps.

“I want you to-night--now. The mare is waitin’. I’m waitin’. But we cain’t wait long.”

“What you sayin’?”

“I love yer, Roxie. I’ve fixed the house all up purty fer yer.”

“For me?”

His cheeks were burning with eagerness now. Roughly he pressed closer.

“You talk like we was married!” she exclaimed.

“To-morrer’s time ’nuff for that. But I wanter make sure of you to-night.”

All the fighting instinct in her flared up--the fighting instinct based upon her pride of womanhood. Like a fury she turned on the man.

“I’d die afore I went with you, Bud Childers!” she exploded.

“But yo’ll come,” he said. “Yo’ll come.”

“Go ’way! Go ’way!”

“I won’t go away--without’n you. ’Cause if I do--s’help me Gawd I’ll get yo’ pink-cheeked fren’ fust.”

If the girl had been struck between the eyes, she could have been no more dazed. A blow would have left her less dazed because then she might not have been able to think. She could think now. Her thoughts ran like flames through dry grass. And like wild flames first in this direction and then that. There was so much in her poor little head that was inflammable!

Miss Wilmer and the Prince--a-holdin’ hands! It was a lie! Wouldn’t she have known, living right here with them, if Miss Wilmer or Mr. Allston--but another burning thought cut in and enveloped this one. They did not know about her--neither of them--then why should she know about them? Love might be a hidden thing, like gold in the ground.

It was a lie--and yet something must have held Bud back when he had this man so at his mercy. It was a lie, and yet not the sort of lie Bud would make up. Bud could lie on occasion--he had lied that night he said her mother was sick--but he was not lying now.

Silently the tall, lean figure stood beside her in the dark awaiting her decision. She turned as though in hope of detecting in him some slight evidence of weakness. She could not see his face, but that was not essential. She felt the set of his thin mouth. He was grimly in earnest. He meant every word he said both about Allston and about herself. He had spoken of love--of love for her. Here was something to catch at. If he was honest about that, he could not be all bad.

But before she could reason very far along this line, she heard some one calling from the house. It was Allston who had come into the kitchen.

Bud turned in a flash with half-raised gun. Allston stood framed in the doorway--an easy mark. With a desperate cry Roxie threw herself in front of Childers.

“I’ll go, Bud,” she whimpered. “I’ll go.”