Then Ill Come Back to You | Page 7

in her gentle, almost lisping voice.
Caleb received the statement as if it were an astounding bit of hitherto undreamed-of news.
"Comin', Sarah!" he chirped briskly. "Comin' this blessed minute!"
And then, with an attempt at disingenuousness:
"I--I've a friend here, Sarah, whom I'd like to--er--present to you! This is my sister, Miss Hunter," he announced to the silent boy, "and this young man, Sarah, this young man is--er--ah--Mr.----"
"I'm Steve," said the boy, mildly. "I'm just Stephen O'Mara!"
"Certainly!" gasped Caleb. "Quite so--quite so! Sarah, this is just Steve."
The frail little woman with her quaint dignity of another decade failed to move; she did not unbend so much as the fraction of an inch. But hard upon the heels of Caleb's last words the boy went forward unhesitatingly. Hat in the hand that balanced his big steel trap, he stopped in front of her and offered one brown paw.
"Haow dye do, Miss Hunter," he saluted her, gravely. And with a slow smile that discovered for her a row of white and even teeth: "Haow dye do? I--I reckon you're the first--dressed-up lady I ever did git to know!"
The calm statement took what little breath there had been left in Caleb's lungs; it left Sarah breathless, too. But after an infinitesimal moment of waiting she held out her own delicate fingers and took the outstretched hand.
"Haow dye do, Steve?" she answered, and Caleb was at a loss to interpret the suppressed quality of her voice. "And I--some day I am sure it will be a great pleasure to remember that I was the--first!"
Then she faced her brother.
"Will you--will your friend, Mr.--Steve--remain for supper, Cal?" she asked.
And Caleb, quick to see an opening, made the most of this one.
"Stay for supper," he repeated her question, and he laughed. "Stay--for--supper! Well, I should hope he would. Why--why, he's going to stop for the night!"
From the vantage place there at the top of the steps Sarah stood and surveyed her brother's wide and guileless face for a second. Then her lips began to twitch.
"Very clever, Cal," she told him. "Quite clever--for you!"
And she nodded and withdrew to see that the table was laid for three.
Caleb, chuckling, watched her go; then with a nod to the boy, he started to follow her in. But Steve paused at the threshold, and when the man stopped and looked back to ascertain the cause of his delay he found that the boy was depositing the bear trap upon the porch floor--found him tugging to free the rusty old revolver from his belt.
"I'll leave Samanthy here," the one called Steve stated, and Caleb understood that he meant the trap. "An' I reckon I'd better not lug my weapon into the house, neither, hed I? She might----" He nodded in the direction of Sarah's disappearance--"Old Tom says womin folks that's gentle born air kind-a skittish about havin' shootin' irons araound the place. And I don't reckon it's the part of men folks to pester 'em."
Caleb didn't know just what to say, so he merely nodded approval. Again he had been made to feel that it was not a boy but some little old man who was explaining to him. Silently he led the way upstairs, and after he had seen the blanket pack deposited in one corner of Sarah's beloved guest-room, after he had seen the rusty coat peeled off as a preface to removing the dust accumulation of the long hot day from hands and face, an inspiration came to him. While the boy was washing, utterly lost to everything but that none-too-simple task, he went out of the room on a still-hunt of his own, and came back presently with the thing for which he had gone searching. He found the boy wrestling a little desperately with a mop of wavy chestnut hair which only grew the more hopeless with every stroke of the brush.
"Never mind that." Caleb met the misapprehension in the boy's eyes. "Never mind that! And I--I've taken the liberty of digging out this old canvas shooting coat. It's one I got for Sarah--for my sister--but, as you say, women folks are mighty skittish about anything that has to do with a gun. She never would go even so far as to try it on, but if you don't mind---- That coat of yours must be a trifle hot for this weather, I should say."
Steve reached out a hand that trembled a little and took the coat. He took it and stared at it with that same strained and hungry look which he had bestowed a half hour before upon the "City."
"Do you mean," he asked, and his lips remained parted breathlessly upon the question, "do you mean--this yere's for me?"
Caleb thought of the "injine"--the "steam injine."
"I mean just that, if you'll have it," he replied. The boy slipped his