Gypsy Heart. “Well, sir, this here feller, he lit a cigarette an’ throwed away the match, an’ it fell in a powder kaig; an’ do you know, more’n half that powder burned up before they could put it out! Yes, sir!”
Ellinor opened her basket and spread its tempting wares with pretty hostly care – or is there such a word as hostessly?
“There! All ready, Mr. – I declare, this is too absurd! We don’t even know each other’s names!” Her conscious eye fell upon the ampleness of the feast – amazing, since it purported to have been put up for one alone; and her face lit up with mischievous delight. She curtsied. “If you please, I’m the Ultimate Consumer!”
He rose, bowing gravely.
“I am the Personal Devil. Glad to meet you.”
“Oh! I’ve heard of you!” remarked the Ultimate Consumer sweetly. She sat down and extended her hand across the spotless linen. “Mr. Lake says – ”
The Personal Devil flushed. It was not because of the proffered hand, which he took unhesitatingly and held rather firmly. The blush was unmistakably caused by anger.
“There is no connection whatever,” he stated, grimly enough, “between the truth and Mr. Lake’s organs of speech.”
“Oh!” cried the Ultimate Consumer triumphantly. “So you’re Mr. Beebe?”
“Bransford – Jeff Bransford,” corrected the Personal Devil crustily. He wilfully relapsed to his former slipshod speech. “Beebe, he’s gone to the Pecos work, him and Ballinger. Mr. John Wesley Also-Ran Pringle’s gone to Old Mexico to bring back another bunch of black, long-horned Chihuahuas. You now behold before you the last remaining Rose of Rosebud. But, why Beebe?”
“Why does Mr. Lake hate all of you so, Mr. Bransford?”
“Because we are infamous scoundrels. Why Beebe?”
“I can’t eat with one hand, Mr. Bransford,” she said demurely. He looked at the prisoned hand with a start and released it grudgingly. “Help yourself,” said his hostess cheerfully. “There’s sandwiches, and roast beef and olives, for a mild beginning.”
“Why Beebe?” he said doggedly.
“Help yourself to the salad and then please pass it over this way. Thank you.”
“Why Beebe?”
“Oh, very well then! Because of the little eohippus, you know – and other things you said.”
“I see!” said the aggrieved Bransford. “Because I’m not from Ohio, like Beebe, I’m not supposed – ”
“Oh, if you’re going to be fussy! I’m from California myself, Mr. Bransford. Out in the country at that. Don’t let’s quarrel, please. We were having such a lovely time. And I’ll tell you a secret. It’s ungrateful of me, and I ought not to; but I don’t care – I don’t like Mr. Lake much since we came on this trip. And I don’t believe – ” She paused, pinkly conscious of the unconventional statement involved in this sudden unbelief.
“ – what Lake says about us?” A much-mollified Bransford finished the sentence for her.
She nodded. Then, to change the subject:
“You do speak cowboy talk one minute – and all booky, polite and proper the next, you know. Why?”
“Bad associations,” said Bransford ambiguously. “Also for ’tis my nature to, as little dogs they do delight to bark and bite. That beef sure tastes like more.”
“And now you may smoke while I pack up,” announced the girl when dessert was over, at long last. “And please, there is something I want to ask you about. Will you tell me truly?”
“Um – you sing?”
“Yes – a little.”
“If you will sing for me afterward?”
“Certainly. With pleasure.”
“All right, then. What’s the story about?”
Ellinor gave him her eyes. “Did you rob the post-office at Escondido – really?”
Now it might well be embarrassing to be asked if you had committed a felony; but there was that behind the words of this naïve query – in look, in tone, in mental attitude – an unflinching and implicit faith that, since he had seen fit to do this thing, it must needs have been the right and wise thing to do, which stirred the felon’s pulses to a pleasant flutter and caused a certain tough and powerful muscle to thump foolishly at his ribs. The delicious intimacy, the baseless faith, was sweet to him.
“Sure, I did!” he answered lightly. “Lake is one talkative little man, isn’t he? Fie, fie! But, shucks! What can you expect? ‘The beast will do after his kind.’”
“And you’ll tell me about it?”
“After I smoke. Got to study up some plausible excuses, you know.”
She studied him as she packed. It was a good face – lined, strong, expressive, vivid; gay, resolute, confident, alert – reckless, perhaps. There were lines of it disused, fallen to abeyance. What was well with the man had prospered; what was ill with him had faded and dimmed. He was not a young man – thirty-seven, thirty-eight – (she was twenty-four) – but there was an unquenchable boyishness about him, despite the few frosty hairs at his temples. He bore his hard years jauntily: youth danced in his eyes. The explorer nodded to herself, well pleased. He was interesting – different.
The tale suffered from Bransford’s telling, as any tale will suffer when marred by the inevitable, barbarous modesty of its hero. It was a long story, cozily confidential; and there were interruptions. The sun was low ere it was done.
“Now the song,” said Jeff, “and then – ” He did not complete the sentence; his face clouded.
“What shall I sing?”
“How can I tell? What you will. What can I know about good songs – or anything else?” responded Bransford in sudden moodiness and dejection – for, after the song, the end of everything! He flinched at the premonition of irrevocable loss.
The girl made no answer. This is what she sang. No; you shall not be told of her voice. Perhaps there is a voice that you remember, that echoes to you through the dusty years. How would you like to describe that?
“Oh, Sandy has monie and Sandy has land,
And Sandy has housen, sae fine and sae grand —
But I’d rather hae Jamie, wi’ nocht in his hand,
Than Sandy, wi’ all of his housen and land.
“My father looks sulky; my mither looks soor;
They gloom upon Jamie because he is poor.
I lo’e them baith dearly, as a docther should do;
But I lo’e them not half sae weel, dear Jamie, as you!
“I sit at my cribbie, I spin at my wheel;
I think o’ the laddie that lo’es me sae weel.
Oh, he had but a saxpence, he brak it in twa,
And he gied me the half o’t ere he gaed awa’!
“He said: ‘Lo’e me lang, lassie, though I gang awa’!’
He said: ‘Lo’e me lang, lassie, though I gang awa’!’
Bland simmer is cooming; cauld winter’s awa’,
And I’ll wed wi’ Jamie in spite o’ them a’!”
Jeff’s back was to a tree, his hat over his eyes. He pushed it up.
“Thank you,” he said; and then, quite directly: “Are you rich?”
“Not – very,” said Ellinor, a