第36章 A JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF CHRISTMAS(9)

"Sleeping with the engine-man now.Why can't you put that on me to-night?""Goin'up-stairs.This gentleman wouldn't let you go up-stairs."But the earnestly petitioned clerk consented,and Billy was the first to hasten into the room.He stood rapturous while Lin buckled the belt round his scanty stomach,and ingeniously buttoned the suspenders outside the accoutrement to retard its immediate descent to earth.

"Did it ever kill a man?"asked Billy,touching the six-shooter.

"No.It ain't never had to do that,but I expect maybe it's stopped some killin'me.""Oh,leave me wear it just a minute!Do you collect arrow-heads?I think they're bully.There's the finest one you ever seen."He brought out the relic,tightly wrapped in paper,several pieces."I foun'it myself,camping with father.It was sticking in a crack right on top of a rock,but nobody'd seen it till I came along.Ain't it fine?"Mr.McLean pronounced it a gem.

"Father an'me found a lot,an'they made mother mad laying around,an' she throwed 'em out.She takes stuff from Kelley's.""Who's Kelley?"

"He keeps the drug-store at Laramie.Mother gets awful funny.That's how she was when I came home.For I told Mr.Perkins he lied,an'I ran then.

An'I knowed well enough she'd lick me when she got through her spell--an'father can't stop her,an'I--ah,I was sick of it!She's lamed me up twice beating me--an'Perkins wanting me to say 'God bless my mother!' a-getting up and a-going to bed--he's a flubdub!An'so I cleared out.

But I'd just as leaves said for God to bless father--an'you.I'll do it now if you say it's any sense."Mr.McLean sat down in a chair."Don't yu'do it now,"said he.

"You wouldn't like mother,"Billy continued."You can keep that."He came to Lin and placed the arrow-head in his hands,standing beside him."Do you like birds'eggs?I collect them.I got twenty-five kinds--sage-hen,an'blue grouse,an'willow-grouse,an'lots more kinds harder--but Icouldn't bring all them from Laramie.I brought the magpie's,though.D' you care to see a magpie egg?Well,you stay to-morrow an'I'll show you that en'some other things I got the engine-man lets me keep there,for there's boys that would steal an egg.An'I could take you where we could fire that pistol.Bet you don't know what that is!"He brought out a small tin box shaped like a thimble,in which were things that rattled.

Mr.McLean gave it up.

"That's kinni-kinnic seed.You can have that,for I got some more with the engine-man."Lin received this second token also,and thanked the giver for it.His first feeling had been to prevent the boy's parting with his treasures,but something that came not from the polish of manners and experience made him know that he should take them.Billy talked away,laying bare his little soul;the street boy that was not quite come made place for the child that was not quite gone,and unimportant words and confidences dropped from him disjointed as he climbed to the knee of Mr.McLean,and inadvertently took that cow-puncher for some sort of parent he had not hitherto met.It lasted but a short while,however,for he went to sleep in the middle of a sentence,with his head upon Lin's breast.The man held him perfectly still,because he had not the faintest notion that Billy would be impossible to disturb.At length he spoke to him,suggesting that bed might prove more comfortable;and,finding how it was,rose and undressed the boy and laid him between the sheets.The arms and legs seemed aware of the moves required of them,and stirred conveniently;and directly the head was upon the pillow the whole small frame burrowed down,without the opening of an eye or a change in the breathing.Lin stood some time by the bedside,with his eyes on the long,curling lashes and the curly hair.Then he glanced craftily at the door of the room,and at himself in the looking-glass.He stooped and kissed Billy on the forehead,and,rising from that,gave himself a hangdog stare in the mirror,and soon in his own bed was sleeping the sound sleep of health.

He was faintly roused by the church bells,and lay still,lingering with his sleep,his eyes closed,and his thoughts unshaped.As he became slowly aware of the morning,the ringing and the light reached him,and he waked wholly,and,still lying quiet,considered the strange room filled with the bells and the sun of the winter's day."Where have Istruck now?"he inquired;and as last night returned abruptly upon his mind,he raised himself on his arm.

There sat Responsibility in a chair,washed clean and dressed,watching him.

"You're awful late,"said Responsibility."But I weren't a-going without telling you good-bye.""Go?"exclaimed Lin."Go where?Yu'surely ain't leavin'me to eat breakfast alone?"The cow-puncher made his voice very plaintive.Set Responsibility free after all his trouble to catch him?This was more than he could do!

"I've got to go.If I'd thought you'd want for me to stay--why,you said you was a-going by the early train!""But the durned thing's got away on me,"said Lin,smiling sweetly from the bed.

"If I hadn't a-promised them--"

"Who?"

"Sidney Ellis and Pete Goode.Why,you know them;you grubbed with them.""Shucks!"

"We're a-going to have fun to-day."

"Oh!"

"For it's Christmas,an'we've bought some good cigars,an'Pete says he'll learn me sure.O'course I've smoked some,you know.But I'd just as leaves stayed with you if I'd only knowed sooner.I wish you lived here.Did you smoke whole big cigars when you was beginning?""Do you like flapjacks and maple syrup?"inquired the artful McLean.

"That's what I'm figuring on inside twenty minutes.""Twenty minutes!If they'd wait--"

"See here,Bill.They've quit expecting yu',don't yu'think?I'd ought to waked,yu'see,but I slep'and slep',and kep'yu'from meetin'your engagements,yu'see--for you couldn't go,of course.A man couldn't treat a man that way now,could he?""Course he couldn't,"said Billy,brightening.