"Yes,miss!You know I reckoned--at least what your father said,made me kalkilate that you"--Miss Mayfield,still smiling,knitted her brows and went on:"I slept so well last night,"she said gratefully,"and feel so much better this morning,that I ventured out.I seem to be drinking in health in this clear sunlight.""Certainly miss.As I was sayin',your father says his daughter is in the coach;and Bill says,says he to me,'I'll pack--I'll carry the old--I'll bring up Mrs.Mayfield,if you'll bring up the daughter;'and when we come to the coach I saw you asleep--like in the corner,and bein'small,why miss,you know how nat'ral it is,I"--"Oh,Mr.Jeff!Mr.Briggs!"said Miss Mayfield plaintively,"don't,please--don't spoil the best compliment I've had in many a year.You thought I was a child,I know,and--well,you find,"she said audaciously,suddenly bringing her black eyes to bear on him like a rifle,"you find--well?"What Jeff thought was inaudible but not invisible.Miss Mayfield saw enough of it in his eye to protest with a faint color in her cheek.
Thus does Nature betray itself to Nature the world over.
The color faded."It's a dreadful thing to be so weak and helpless,and to put everybody to such trouble,isn't it,Mr.Jeff?I beg your pardon--your aunt calls you Jeff.""Please call me Jeff,"said Jeff,to his own surprise rapidly gaining courage."Everybody calls me that."Miss Mayfield smiled."I suppose I must do what everybody does.So it seems that we are to give you the trouble of keeping us here until I get better or worse?""Yes,miss."
"Therefore I won't detain you now.I only wanted to thank you for your gentleness last night,and to assure you that the bear-skin did not give me my death."She smiled and nodded her small head,and wrapped her shawl again closely around her shoulders,and turned her eyes upon the mountains,gestures which the now quick-minded Jeff interpreted as a gentle dismissal,and flew to seek his aunt.
Here he grew practical.Ready money was needed;for the "Half-way House"was such a public monument of ill-luck,that Jeff had no credit.He must keep up the table to the level of that fortunate breakfast--to do which he had $1.50in the till,left by Bill,and $2.50produced by his Aunt Sally from her work-basket.
"Why not ask Mr.Mayfield to advance ye suthin?"said Aunt Sally.
The blood flew to Jeff's face."Never!Don't say that again,aunty."The tone and manner were so unlike Jeff that the old lady sat down half frightened,and taking the corners of her apron in her hands began to whimper.
"Thar now,aunty!I didn't mean nothin',--only if you care to have me about the place any longer,and I reckon it's little good I am any way,"he added,with a new-found bitterness in his tone,"ye'll not ask me to do that.""What's gone o'ye,Jeff?"said his aunt lugubriously;"ye ain't nat'ral like."Jeff laughed."See here,aunty;I'm goin'to take your advice.You know Rabbit?""The mare?"
"Yes;I'm going to sell her.The blacksmith offered me a hundred dollars for her last week.""Ef ye'd done that a month ago,Jeff,ez I wanted ye to,instead o'keeping the brute to eat ye out o'house and home,ye'd be better off."Aunt Sally never let slip an opportunity to "improve the occasion,"but preferred to exhort over the prostrate body of the "improved.""Well,I hope he mayn't change his mind."Jeff smiled at such suggestion regarding the best horse within fifty miles of the "Half-way House."Nevertheless he went briskly to the stable,led out and saddled a handsome grey mare,petting her the while,and keeping up a running commentary of caressing epithets to which Rabbit responded with a whinny and playful reaches after Jeff's red flannel sleeve.Whereat Jeff,having loved the horse until it was displaced by another mistress,grew grave and suddenly threw his arms around Rabbit's neck,and then taking Rabbit's nose,thrust it in the bosom of his shirt and held it there silently for a moment.
Rabbit becoming uneasy,Jeff's mood changed too,and having caparisoned himself and charger in true vaquero style,not without a little Mexican dandyism as to the set of his doeskin trousers,and the tie of his red sash,put a sombrero rakishly on his curls and leaped into the saddle.
Jeff was a fair rider in a country where riding was understood as a natural instinct,and not as a purely artificial habit of horse and rider,consequently he was not perched up,jockey fashion,with a knee-grip for his body,and a rein-rest for his arms on the beast's mouth,but rode with long,loose stirrups,his legs clasping the barrel of his horse,his single rein lying loose upon her neck,leaving her head free as the wind.After this fashion he had often emerged from a cloud of dust on the red mountain road,striking admiration into the hearts of the wayfarers and coach-passengers,and leaving a trail of pleasant incense in the dust behind him.It was therefore with considerable confidence in himself,and a little human vanity,that he dashed round the house,and threw his mare skilfully on her haunches exactly a foot before Miss Mayfield--himself a resplendent vision of flying riata,crimson scarf,fawn-colored trousers,and jingling silver spurs.
"Kin I do anythin'for ye,miss,at the Forks?"Miss Mayfield looked up quietly."I think not,"she said indifferently,as if the flaming-Jeff was a very common occurrence.
Jeff here permitted the mare to bolt fifty yards,caught her up sharply,swung her round on her off hind heel,permitted her to paw the air once or twice with her white-stockinged fore-feet,and then,with another dash forward,pulled her up again just before she apparently took Miss Mayfield and her chair in a running leap.
"Are you sure,miss?"asked Jeff,with a flushed face and a rather lugubrious voice.
"Quite so,thank you,"she said coldly,looking past this centaur to the wooded mountain beyond.
Jeff,thoroughly crushed,was pacing meekly away when a childlike voice stopped him.