The Cow Puncher | Page 8

was not all on the surface.
He completed his operation at the stove and returned the lid to its place with no lack of deliberation. He was evidently waiting for her to speak again, but she worked on in silence.
"What did you say about milking?" he ventured at length.
"I asked you if you milked," she said, with an attempt at curtness. "And you answered, 'Milk what?' as though that were clever. And we need milk for breakfast."
"Well, I was serious enough," he said. "There isn't a cow within twenty miles."
"No cows? Why, I thought this was the ranching country?"
"Sure thing. We sell beef and buy milk. Let me show you."
He approached a packing-case on the wall, walking softly and extending his hands as though to touch it gently, and murmuring, "So boss; so boss," as he went. From the box he removed a tin of condensed milk, which he set on the table. In his pocket he found a nail, and with a hammer quickly made two holes in the tin.
"Milkin' is finished," he announced.
At this juncture the doctor, who had been resting in the room with his patient, entered the kitchen. During the setting of the limb he had gradually become aware of the position of Irene in the household, but had that not been so, one glance at the boy and girl as they now stood in the bright morning sunshine, he with his big, wiry frame, his brown face, his dark eyes, his black hair; she, round and knit and smooth, with the pink shining through her fair skin and the light of youth dancing in her grey eyes and the light of day glancing on her brown hair, must have told him they had sprung from widely separated stock. For one perilous moment he was about to apologize for the mistake made in the darkness, but some wise instinct closed his lips. But he wondered why she had not corrected him.
They were seated at breakfast when the senior Elden made his appearance. He had slept off his debauch and was as sober as a man in the throes of alcoholic appetite may be. He was only partially dressed; his face had the peculiar bulginess of the hard drinker; his eyes were watery and shifty, and several days' growth of beard, with patchy grey and black spots, gave a stucco effect to his countenance. His moustache drooped over a partly open mouth; the top of his large head was bald, and the hair that hung about his ears was much darker than his moustache. Seeing the strangers, he hesitated in his lurch toward the water pail, steadied himself on wide-spread feet, very flat on the floor, and waved his right hand slowly in the air. Whether this was to be understood as a form of salutation or a gesture of defiance was a matter of interpretation.
"Vishitors," said the old man, at length. "Alwaysh welcome, m'sure. 'Sh scush me." He made his uncertain way to the water bench, took a great drink, and set about washing his face and hands, while the breakfast proceeded in silence. As his preparations neared completion Irene set a place at the table.
"Won't you sit down here, Mr. Elden?" she said. There had been no introductions. Dave ate on in silence.
"Thank you," said the old man, and there was something in his voice which may have been emotion, or may have been the huskiness of the heavy drinker's throat. The girl gave it the former explanation. Perhaps it was his unintended tribute to that touch of womanly attentiveness to which his old heart still beat response. As he took the proffered chair she saw in this old man shreds of dignity which the less refined eye of his son had not distinguished. To Dave, his father was an affliction to be borne; an unfair load on a boy who had done nothing to deserve this punishment. The miseries associated with his parentage had gone far to make him sour and moody. Irene at first had thought him rude and gloomy; flashes of humor had modified that opinion, but she had not yet learned that his disposition was naturally a buoyant one, weighed down by an environment which had made it soggy and unresponsive. In years to come she was to know what unguessed depths of character were to be revealed when that stoic nature was cross-sectioned by the blade of a keen and defiant passion. This morning she foresaw nothing of those future revelations, but in the old man her instinct detected qualities which perhaps were awaiting only some touch of sympathetic understanding to flash forth even yet like that burst of sunset radiance which sometimes marks the close of a leaden day.
Mr. Elden promptly engaged the doctor in conversation, and in a few