The Moccasin Ranch | Page 9

soft, rhythmical tread of the horses' feet, and the snapping buzz of the grasshoppers rising from the weeds. Far away to the west lay the blue Coteaux, thirty miles distant, long, low, without break, like a wall. The sun was hidden by the cloud, and as he passed a shanty Rivers saw the family eating their supper outside the door to escape the smothering heat.
He smiled as he saw the gleam of white dresses about the door of the store. As he drove up, a swarm of impatient folk came out to meet him. The girls waved their handkerchiefs at him, and the men raised a shout.
"You're late, old man."
"I know it, but that makes me all the more welcome." He heaved the mail-bag to Bailey. "There's a letter for every girl in the crowd, I know, for I wrote 'em."
"We'll believe that when we see the letters," the girls replied.
He dismounted heavily. "Somebody put my team up. I'm hungry as a wolf and dry as a biscuit."
"The poor thing," said one of the girls. "He means a cracker."
Estelle Clayton came out of the store. "Supper's all ready for you, Mr. Mail-Carrier. Come right in and sit down."
"I'm a-coming--now watch me," he replied, with intent to be funny.
The girls accompanied him into the little living-room.
"Oh, my, don't some folks live genteel? See the canned peaches!"
"And the canned lobster!"
"And the hot biscuit!"
"Sit down, Jim, and we'll pour the tea and dip out the peaches."
Rivers seated himself at the little pine table. "I guess you'd better whistle while you're dipping the peaches," he said, pointedly.
Miss Thompson dropped the spoon. "What impudence!"
"Oh, let him go on--don't mind him," said Estelle. "Let's desert him; I guess that will make him sorry."
Upon the word they all withdrew, and Rivers smiled. "Good riddance," said he.
Miss Baker presently opened the door, and, shaking a letter, said, "Don't you wish you knew?"
He pretended to hurl a biscuit at her, and she shut the door with a shriek of laughter.
Mrs. Burke slipped in. Her voice was low and timid, her face sombre.
"I cooked the supper, Jim."
"You did? Well, it's good. The biscuits are delicious." He looked at her as only a husband should look--intimate, unwaveringly, secure. "You're looking fine!"
She flushed with pleasure. As she passed him with the tea, he put his arm about her waist.
"Be careful, Jim," she said, gently, and with a revealing, familiar, sad cadence in her voice.
He smiled at her boyishly. He was beautiful to her in this mood. "I was hoping you'd come over and stew something up for me. Hello, there's the thunder! It's going to rain!"
Another sudden boom, like a cannon-shot, silenced the noise inside for an instant, and then a sudden movement took place, the movement of feet passing hurriedly about, and at last only one or two persons could be heard. When Rivers re-entered the store Bailey was alone, standing in the door, intently watching the coming storm. It was growing dusk on the plain, and the lightning was beginning to play rapidly, low down toward the horizon.
"We're in for it!" Bailey remarked, very quietly. "Cyclone!"
"Think so?" said Rivers, carelessly.
"Sure of it, Jim. That cloud's too wide in the wings to miss us this time."
A peculiar, branching flash of lightning lay along the sky, like a vast elm-tree, followed by a crashing roar.
Blanche cried out in alarm.
"Now, don't be scared. It's only a shower and will soon be over," said Bailey. "Here's a letter for you."
She took the letter and read it hastily, looking often at the coming storm. She seemed pale and distraught.
"Do you s'pose I've got time to get home now?" she asked, as she finished reading.
"No," said Rivers, so decidedly that Bailey looked up in surprise.
"Can't you take me home?"
Rivers looked out of the door. "By the time we get this wagon unloaded and the team hitched up, the storm will be upon us. No. I guess you're safest right here."
There was a peculiar tone, a note of authority, in his voice which puzzled Bailey quite as much as her submission.
They worked silently and swiftly, getting the barrels of pork and oil and flour into the store, and by the time they had emptied the wagon the room was dark, so dark that the white face of the awed woman could be seen only as a blotch of gray against the shadow.
They lighted the oil lamps, which hung in brackets on the wall, and then Rivers said to Blanche: "Won't you go into the other room? We must stay here and look after the goods."
"No, no! I'd rather be here with you; it's going to be terrible."
"Hark!" said Bailey, with lifted hands; "there she comes!"
Far away was heard a continuous, steady, low-keyed, advancing hum, like the rushing of wild horses, their hoofbeats lost in one mighty, throbbing,