The Long Shadow | Page 4

could conjure
excuses for the delinquent.
"I'll let you wash the dishes," promised Miss Bridger generously. "But
I'll cook the supper--really, I want to, you know. I won't say I'm not
hungry, because I am. This Western air does give one such an appetite,
doesn't it? And then I walked miles, it seems to me; so that ought to be
an excuse, oughtn't it? Now, if you'll show me where the coffee is--"
She had risen and was looking at him expectantly, with a half smile that
seemed to invite one to comradeship. Charming Billy looked at her
helplessly, and turned a shade less brown.
"The--there isn't any," he stammered guiltily. "The Pilgrim--I mean
Walland--Fred Walland--"
"It doesn't matter in the least," Miss Bridger assured him hastily. "One
can't keep everything in the house all the time, so far from any town.
We're often out of things, at home. Last week, only, I upset the vanilla
bottle, and then we were completely out of vanilla till just yesterday."
She smiled again confidingly, and Billy tried to seem very
sympathetic--though of a truth, to be out of vanilla did not at that
moment seem to him a serious catastrophe. "And really, I like tea better,
you know. I only said coffee because father told me cowboys drink it a
great deal. Tea is so much quicker and easier to make."
Billy dug his nails into his palms. "There--Miss Bridger," he blurted
desperately, "I've got to tell yuh--there isn't a thing in the shack except
some dried apricots--and maybe a spoonful or two of tapioca. The
Pilgrim--" He stopped to search his brain for words applicable to the
Pilgrim and still mild enough for the ears of a lady.
"Well, never mind. We can rough it--it will be lots of fun!" the girl
laughed so readily as almost to deceive Billy, standing there in his
misery. That a woman should come to him for help, and he not even
able to give her food, was almost unbearable. It were well for the
Pilgrim that Charming Billy Boyle could not at that moment lay hands

upon him.
"It will be fun," she laughed again in his face. "If the--the grubstake is
down to a whisper (that's the way you say it, isn't it?) there will be all
the more credit coming to the cook when you see all the things she can
do with dried apricots and tapioca. May I rummage?"
"Sure," assented Billy, dazedly moving aside so that she might reach
the corner where three boxes were nailed by their bottoms to the wall,
curtained with gayly flowered calico and used for a cupboard. "The
Pilgrim," he began for the third time to explain, "went after grub and is
taking his time about getting back. He'd oughta been here day before
yesterday. We might eat his dawg," he suggested, gathering spirit now
that her back was toward him.
Her face appeared at one side of the calico curtain. "I know something
better than eating the dog," she announced triumphantly. "Down there
in the willows where I crossed the creek--I came down that low, saggy
place in the hill--I saw a lot of chickens or something--partridges,
maybe you call them--roosting in a tree with their feathers all puffed
out. It's nearly dark, but they're worth trying for, don't you think? That
is, if you have a gun," she added, as if she had begun to realize how
meagre were his possessions. "If you don't happen to have one, we can
do all right with what there is here, you know."
Billy flushed a little, and for answer took down his gun and belt from
where they hung upon the wall, buckled the belt around his slim middle
and picked up his hat. "If they're there yet, I'll get some, sure," he
promised. "You just keep the fire going till I come back, and I'll wash
the dishes. Here, I'll shut the dawg in the house; he's always plumb
crazy with ambition to do just what yuh don't want him to do, and I
don't want him following." He smiled upon her again (he was finding
that rather easy to do) and closed the door lingeringly behind him.
Having never tried to analyze his feelings, he did not wonder why he
stepped so softly along the frozen path that led to the stable, or why he
felt that glow of elation which comes to a man only when he has found
something precious in his sight.

"I wish I hadn't eat the last uh the flour this morning," he regretted
anxiously. "I coulda made some bread; there's a little yeast powder left
in the can. Darn the Pilgrim!"
CHAPTER II.
Prune Pie and Coon-can.
Of a truth, Charming Billy Boyle, living his life in the wide