The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories | Page 9

to discover that fatal flaw in your character."
Weary began to squirm, after the manner of delinquent Beckmans and
Pilgreens. One thing he had learned: When the schoolma'am rose to
irreproachable English, there was trouble a-brew. It was a sign he had
never known to fail.
"I cannot understand the depraved instinct which prompts a man
brutally to destroy a life he cannot restore, and which in no way
menaces his own--or even interferes with his comfort. You may
apologize to me; you may even be sincerely repentant"--the
schoolma'am's tone at this point implied considerable doubt--"but you
are powerless to return the life you have so heedlessly taken. You have

revealed a low, brutal trait which I had hoped your nature could not
harbor, and I am--am deeply shocked and--and grieved."
Just here a tiny, dry-weather whirlwind swept around the corner, caught
ruffled, white apron and blue skirt in its gyrations and, pushing them
wickedly aside, gave Weary a brief, delicious glimpse of two small,
slippered feet and two distracting ankles. The schoolma'am blushed and
retreated to the doorstep, but she did not sit down. She still stood
straight and displeased beside him. Evidently she was still shocked and
grieved.
Weary tipped his head to one side so that be might look up at her from
under his hat-brim. "I'll get yuh another gopher; six, if yuh say so," he
soothed, "The woods is full of 'em."
The angry, brown eyes of Miss Satterly swept the barren hills
contemptuously. She would not even look at him. "Pray do not
inconvenience yourself, Mr. Davidson. It is not the gopher that I care
for so much--it is the principle."
Weary sighed and slid the gun back into his pocket. It seemed to him
that Miss Satterly, adorable as she always was, was also rather
unreasonable at times. "All right, I'll get yuh another principle, then."
"Mr. Davidson," she said sternly, "you are perfectly odious!"
"Is that something nice, Girlie?" Weary smiled trustfully up at her.
"Odious," explained the schoolma'am haughtily, "is not something nice.
I'm sorry your education has been so neglected. Odious, Mr. Davidson,
is a synonym for hateful, obnoxious, repulsive, disagreeable,
despicable--"
"I never did like cinnamon, anyhow," put in Weary, cheerfully.
"I did not mention cinnamon. I said--"
"Say, yuh look out uh sight with your hair fixed that way. I wish you'd
wear it like that all the time," he observed irrelevantly, looking up at
her with his sunniest smile.
"I wish to goodness I were really out of sight," snapped the
schoolma'am. "You make me exceedingly weary."
"_Mrs._ Weary," corrected he, complacently. "That's what I'm sure
aiming at."
"You aim wide of the mark, then," she retorted valiantly, though
confusion waved a red flag in either cheek.
"Oh, I don't know. A minute ago you were roasting me because my aim

was too good," he contended mildly, glancing involuntarily toward the
gopher stretched upon its little, yellow back, its four small feet turned
pitifully up to the blue.
"If you had an atom of decency you'd be ashamed to mention that
tribute to your diabolical marksmanship."
"Oh, mamma!" ejaculated Weary under his breath, and began to make
himself a smoke. His guardian angel was exhorting him to silence, but
it preached, as usual, to unsentient ears.
"I never mentioned all those things," he denied meekly. "It's you that
keeps on mentioning. I wish yuh wouldn't. I like to hear you talk, all
right, and flop all those big words easy as roping a calf; but I wish
you'd let me choose your subject for yuh. I could easy name one where
you could use words just as high and wide and handsome, and a heap
more pleasant than the brand you've got corralled. Try admiration and
felicitation and exhilarating, ecstatic osculation--" He stopped to run
the edge of paper along his tongue, and perhaps it was as well he did;
there was no need of making her any angrier. Miss Satterly hated to
feel that she was worsted, and it was quite clear that Weary had all
along been "guying" her.
"If you came here to make me hate you, you have accomplished your
errand admirably; it would be advisable now for you to hike."
Weary, struck by that incongruous last word, did an unforgivable thing.
He laughed and laughed, while the match he had just lighted flared,
sent up a blue thread of brimstone smoke, licked along the white wood
and scorched his fingers painfully before he remembered his cigarette.
Miss Satterly turned abruptly and went into the house, put on her hat
and took up the little, tin lard-pail in which her aunt Meeker always
packed her lunch. She was back, had the key turned in the lock and was
slowly pulling on her gloves by the