Billy looked him over briefly.
"Yo're a breed, ain't yo'?" he inquired with refreshing directness. "I thought so." He turned to Buckley, with the air of ignoring Lafond altogether. "That bars him," he said, with a little laugh.
"He's got a mighty good line of broncs," Buckley objected.
"Don't care if his hosses are good," stated Billy decidedly. "He's a breed, an' that's enough. I seen plenty of that crew, and I ain't goin' to have one in the same country with me, if I can help it, let alone the same outfit."
He began to whistle and rummage in the back of the wagon, with a charming obliviousness to the presence of the subject of his remarks.
"That settles it," said Buckley, curtly and indifferently.
The half-breed, his nervous hands deep in his side-pockets, walked slowly to his horse. Then, in sudden access of rapid motion, he leaped on the animal's back and disappeared.
II
THE WOMAN
Barely had the dust of the half-breed's sudden departure sifted from the air, when Buckley arose and announced his intention of "taking a little look round." He was gone two hours, and returned looking solemn and earnest. Billy and Alfred were cooking things over a small fire. Buckley spat in a propitiatory manner toward seven small bushes, and conversationally informed the northwest corner of the canvas top on a nearby schooner that he, Jim Buckley, had decided to take along a woman.
Billy and Alfred thereupon spilled the coffee, and could not believe their ears.
"She's goin', if I have to take her by myself," Buckley concluded. And then Alfred and Billy looked up into his face, and saw that he was in earnest.
Alfred turned pink and wriggled the bacon, trying immediately to think how he was going to make the best of this. It did not look easy.
Billy Knapp exploded.
"You go to hell!" was his method of objection.
"She goes," repeated Jim, with even greater quietness of manner. "An' if you-all don' like it, why, jest say so. I quits. You got to have her, if you have me."
"I'd jest like to know why," complained Billy, a little sobered at this threat.
Whereupon Jim found himself utterly at a loss. He had not thought as far as that. He suddenly appreciated the logical weakness of his position; but then, again, intuitively, he realized more subtly its strength. So he said not a word, but arose lightly, and brought unto them the woman herself.
She was a sweet little woman, with deep, trusting blue eyes, and she accompanied Jim without a thought of the opposition she had excited. Jim merely told her she was to meet the other two men. She intended only to show her appreciation of their kindness.
She approached the fire, and assumed her most gracious manner.
"I want to thank you both, as well as Mr. Buckley, for being so good to me," she began, with real feeling. "I know how hard it is for you to take me just now, and I appreciate it more than I can say. I don't know what we would have done. You need not be afraid that we shall be much trouble, for we will all be brave, and not murmur. Your goodness has made me very happy, and I am going to pray to God for you to-night," said the little Puritan with simple reverence. It meant a great deal to her.
Alfred, as usual, was wrigglingly shy. Billy Knapp several times opened his mouth to object, but somehow closed it slowly each time without having objected. The woman saw. She thought it meant that her presence embarrassed them both, so with true tact she wished them a gentle good-night, and went away.
The three looked at one another.
"Well?" asked Jim defiantly.
Billy coughed. He spat in the fire. He exploded. "Damn it! She goes!" he roared with the voice of a bull.
They both looked expectantly toward Alfred. Alfred nodded his head. He was wondering how long it had been since anyone had prayed for him.
"Thar is a man with her," remarked Jim, after a moment's silence. "He's a tenderfoot. And a kid. The kid has blue eyes, too," he added irrelevantly.
"The camp'll be mighty riled," put in Alfred.
"Let's go see the tenderfoot," suggested the practical Billy.
They dropped everything, and went over to the "hotel," where they viewed the woman's husband at a safe distance. He was a slight, bent man, with near-sighted eyes behind thick spectacles, straight, light hair, and a peering, abstracted expression of countenance. He wore a rather shiny frock coat.
"Gee Christmas!" ejaculated Billy, and laughed loudly.
Alfred shook his head.
Jim looked grave.
They returned to camp, and began to discuss the question of ways and means. There would surely be trouble when the affair became known. The inclusion of a tenderfoot from Chicago, on account of his pinto team, had almost resulted in a riot of the rejected. Not one of the three was fatuous enough to imagine for a moment that Jack Snowie, for instance, who had been refused because he wanted to take his wife, would exactly rejoice over the scouts' decision. In fact, Jack had a rather well-developed sense of injustice, and a summary method of showing it. And he was by no means alone.
Jim agreed to transport the three in his schooner, which was one point well settled. Billy suggested at least a dozen absurd methods of keeping the camp in ignorance until the start had actually been made, each one of which was laughed to scorn by the practical Jim.
"She might put on men's clothes," he concluded desperately.
"For the love of God, what for?" inquired Jim. "Stick to sense, Billy. Besides, there's the kid."
Billy tried once more.
"They might meet us 'bout a hundred mile out. He could take Jim's schooner, here, and mosey out nor'-west, and then jest nat'rally pick us up after we gets good and started. That way, the camp thinks he palavers with Jim and us to get a schooner, and maybe they thinks Jim is a damn fool a whole lot, but Jim don't mind that; do you, Jim?"
"No, I don't mind that," said Jim, "but yore scheme's no good."
"Why?"
"He wouldn't get ten mile before somebody'd hold him up and lift his schooner off him. They's a raft of bad men jest layin' fer a chance like that to turn road agent."
Billy turned a slow brick-red, and got up suddenly, overturning the coffee-pot. A dozen strides brought him to the camp of the Tennessee outfit. There he raised his voice to concert pitch.
"We aims to pull out day arter to-morrow," he bellowed. "We also aims to take with us two tenderfeet, a woman, and a kid. Them that has objections can go to the devil."
So saying, he turned abruptly on his heel and returned to his friends. Jim whistled; but Alfred smiled softly, and began to recap the nipples of his old-fashioned Colt's revolvers. Alfred was at that time the best shot with a six-shooter in the middle West.
Seeing this, Billy's frown relaxed into a grin.
"I'm thinkin' that them that does object probably will go to the devil," said he.
In half an hour the news was all over camp. When Michaïl Lafond heard of it, he left his dinner half eaten and went out to talk earnestly to a great variety of people.
III