LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

came close the buildings were hidden from him by the high bank; only the top of the "company's" flagpole showed. The first human sound that struck on his ears was the vociferous, angry crying of a boy-child.

      Rounding a little point of the bank, the cause of the commotion was revealed. Jack grinned, and held his paddle. The sluggish current carried him toward the actors in the scene, and they were too intent to observe him. A half-submerged, flat-bottomed barge was moored to the shore. On the decked end of it a young girl in a blue print dress was seated on a box, vigorously soaping an infant of four. Two other ivory-skinned cupids, one older, one younger, were playing in the warm water that partly filled the barge. Their clothes lay in a heap behind the girl.

      She was a very pretty girl; the mere sight of her caused Jack's breast to lift and his heart to set up a slightly increased beating. It was so long since he had seen one! Her soft lips were determinedly pressed together; in one hand she gripped the thin arm of her captive, while with the other she applied the soap until his writhing little body flashed in the sun as if burnished. Struggles and yells were in vain. The other two children played in the water, callously indifferent to the sufferings of their brother. It was clear they had been through their ordeal.

      The girl, warned of an approaching presence, raised a pair of startled eyes. Her captive, feeling the vise relax, plunged into the water of the barge with incredible swiftness, and, rapturously splashing off the hated soap, joined his brothers at the other end, safely out of her reach. The girl blushed for their nakedness. They themselves stared open-mouthed at the stranger without any embarrassment at all. The fat baby was sitting in the water, turned into stone with astonishment, like a statue of Buddha in a flood.

      Something in the young man's frank laugh reassured the girl, and she laughed a little too, though blushing still. She glowed with youth and health, deep-bosomed as Ceres, and all ivory and old rose. Her delicious, soft, roundness was a tantalizing sight to a hungry youth. But there was something more than mere provoking loveliness—her large brown eyes conveyed it, a disquieting wistfulness even while she laughed.

      He brought his raft alongside the barge, and, rising, extended his hand according to the custom of the country. Hastily wiping her own soapy hand on her apron, she laid it in his. Both thrilled to the touch, and their eyes quailed from each other. Jack quickly recovered himself. Lovely as she might be, she was none the less a "native," and therefore to a white man fair game. Naturally he took the world as he found it.

      "You are Mary Cranston," he said. "I should have known if there was another like you in the country," his bold eyes added.

      The girl lowered her eyes. "Yes," she murmured.

      Her voice astonished him, and filled him with the desire to make her speak again. "You don't know who I am," he said.

      She glanced at the banjo case. "Jack Chanty," she said softly.

      "Good!" he cried. "That's what it is to be famous!" Their eyes met, and they laughed as at a rich joke. Her laugh was as sweet as the sound of falling water in the ears of thirst, and the name he went by as spoken by her rang in his ears with rare tenderness.

      "How did you know?" he asked curiously.

      "Everybody knows about everybody up here," she said. "There are so few! You came from across the mountains, and have been prospecting under Mount Tetrahedron since the winter. The Indians who came in to trade told us about the banjo, and about the many songs you sang, which were strange to them."

      The ardour of his gaze confused her. She broke off, and, to hide her confusion, turned abruptly to the staring ivory cupids. "Andy, come here!" she commanded in the voice of sisterly authority. "Colin! Gibbie! Come and get dressed!"

      Andy and Colin grinned sheepishly, and stayed where they were. The smile of Andy, the elder, was toothless and exasperating. As for the infant Buddha, he continued to sit unmoved, to suck his thumb, and to stare.

      She stamped her foot. "Andy! Come here this minute! Colin! Gibbie!" she repeated in a voice of helpless vexation.

      They did not move.

      "Look sharp, young 'uns!" Jack suddenly roared.

      Of one accord, as if galvanized into life, they scrambled toward their sister, making a detour around the far side of the barge to avoid Jack.

      Mary rewarded him with a smile, and dealt out the clothes with a practised hand. Andy, clasping his garments to his breast, set off over the plank to the shore, and was hauled back just in time.

      "He has to have his hair cut, because the steamboat is coming," his sister explained; "and I don't see how I can hold on to him while I am dressing the others."

      "Pass him over here," said Jack.

      Andy, struck with terror, was deposited on the raft, whence escape was impossible without passing the big man, and commanded to dress himself without more ado.

      Mary regarded the other two anxiously. "They're beginning to shiver," she said, "and I can't dress both at once."

      Jack sat on the edge of the barge with his feet on the raft. "Give me the baby," he said.

      "You couldn't dress a baby," she said, with a provoking dimple in either cheek.

      "Yes, I can, if he wears pants," said Jack serenely. "There's no mystery about pants."

      "Besides, he'd yell," she objected.

      "No, he won't," said Jack. "Try him and see."

      And in sooth he did not yell, but sat on Jack's knee while his little shirt was pulled over his head and buttoned, sucking his thumb, and staring at Jack with a piercing, unflinching stare.

      "You have a way with babies," the girl said in the sweet, hushed voice that continually astonished him.

      He looked at her with his mocking smile. "And with girls?" his eyes asked boldly.

      She blushed, and attended strictly to Colin's buttons.

      Colin, fully attired in shirt, trousers, and moccasins, was presently dismissed over the plank. He lingered on the shore, shouting opprobrious epithets to his elder, still in captivity. At the same time the baby was dressed in the smallest pair of long pants ever made. He was as bow-legged as a bulldog. Jack leaned back, roaring with laughter at the figure of gravity he made. Gibbie didn't mind. He could walk, but he preferred to sit. He continued to sit cross-legged on the end of the barge, and to stare.

      Next, Andy was seated on the box, while Mary, kneeling behind him, produced her scissors.

      "If you don't sit still you'll get the top of your cars cut off!" she said severely.

      But sitting still was difficult under the taunts from ashore.

      "Jutht you wait till I git aholt of you," lisped the toothless one, proving that the language of unregenerate youth is much the same on the far-off Spirit River as it is on the Bowery.

      Jack returned to the raft and unstrapped the banjo case. "Be a good boy and I'll sing you a song," he said, presumably to Andy, but looking at Mary meanwhile.

      At the sound of the tuning-up the infant Buddha in long pants gravely arose stern foremost, and reseated himself at the edge of the barge, where he could get a better view of the player.

      Jack chose another rollicking air, but a new tone had crept into his deep voice. He sang softly, for he had no desire to bring others down the bank to interrupt his further talk with Mary.

      "Oh, the pretty, pretty creature!

       When I next do meet her

       No more like a clown will I face her frown,

       But gallantly will I treat her,

       But gallantly will I treat her,

       Oh, the pretty, pretty creature!"

      The infant Buddha condescended to smile, and to bounce once or twice on his fundament by way of applause. Andy sat as still as a surprised chipmunk. Colin was sorry now that he had cut himself

Скачать книгу