CHAPTER VI. THE GIRL FROM FIFTH AVENUE.
“‘So long,’” quoted Jac. “Is that the Western way of saving good-by, Mr. Gordon?”
There was a serious question in her eyes. Maurie leaned back and drew a deep breath.
“Maybe your friend Carrigan talks that way, an’ I’ve heard some others say the same thing, but it ain’t considered partic’lar choice. Most of us says ‘adios’ or something like that.”
“Oh, I thought it was rather queer, but then Mr. Carrigan is”—she paused—“rather queer in lots of ways!”
It was plain that she considered him different. The music began. They danced. The rather diffident arm of big Maurie gathered strength and confidence.
“You sure c’n throw your feet!” he burst out at length.
“You ain’t travelin’ very far behind,” said Jac, amiably.
She felt Maurie start. She knew—with a growing coldness of heart—that he was staring down at her face with question. With a great effort she made her eyes rise and rest artlessly upon his. She was hunting her book-vocabulary desperately.
“I’ve picked that up from the western vernacular. Mr. Gordon. Does it sound natural?”
“It sure does.”
The doubt was gone from his face. The triumph reinforced her smile. Dolly Maxwell sailed by in the arms of Carrigan. They were dancing beautifully.
“Say,” said Gordon with sudden anxiety. “What was that funny step you done with Carrigan?”
“That was the Silvestre Slide, as they call it in New York.”
“Oh!”
“I invented it and it was picked up all along Fifth Avenue. You’ve no idea how quickly things spread in New York. They named it after me.”
In his awe he almost lost step. She enjoyed his consternation for a moment and then in pity spoke: “Shall we try it?”
“D’you really think I could get away with it?”
“‘Get away with it,’ Mr. Gordon?”
“I mean, d’you think I could be taught?”
“Oh, yes. It’s this way. It’s a cinch!—as you say out here in the west!”
They started the maneuver, but Gordon was afflicted with stage fright. He blundered miserably. A snicker sounded about them, and desire for murder flooded the heart of Jacqueline, for Carrigan and Dolly Maxwell had just executed the step perfectly. She set her teeth and drove ahead.
“Mr. Gordon, have you lived all your life in the West?”
“Yep. Every day of it!”
She sighed.
Then: “That is why you are so different. In the East the boys are so—well, so artificial!”
“Huh?” said Maurie vaguely. “That so?”
“But you are like your own wild west! with a heart as big as your mountain-desert and as open as your skies!”
The arm of Maurie tightened. She felt his breath coming quickly against her hair, and she thought of the spilled coffee and the “damnation!” of earlier in that same evening. Life was sweet indeed!
“What makes you so unusual, Mr. Gordon?”
Once, twice her lips stirred before the words came.
“It’s a hard life on the range. It takes a strong man to get by.”
“You look strong, Mr. Gordon.”
Laughter makes the voice purr, and there was a caress in the tone of Jacqueline. He stiffened, throwing his shoulders back.
“In a pinch I’ve done a man’s work,” he said modestly.
“I’ve heard about men who can take a steer by the horns and wrestle until they throw the big animal—but I suppose that is just western joking?”
“Nope. I don’t think nothin’ at all of throwin’ a steer.”
“Oh! And aren’t you afraid of—of their nasty horns?”
She stammered with admiration and wonder.
“I was brung up to take chances. Throwin’ a steer ain’t much—for a man like me. You see, I got the size for it. A feller needs weight on the range.”
“But some of these cow-punchers seem quite slender.”
“Yep. But they don’t count much for a real man’s work. Take Carrigan, over there. I guess he’s a pretty fair sort when it comes to gettin’ around, but he ain’t got the weight. I guess he weighs about twenty pounds less’n I do.”
“Do you know that I feel—but you would think me foolish if I said it!”
“Lady—Miss—Miss Silvestre, you c’n lay ten to one I won’t think anything you say is foolish!”
“Well, then, I feel as if you are the only real man I have ever known.”
“Honest?” said the deep, quivering voice.
“Yes. The rest I cannot understand. I—I stifle among them!”
“You ain’t stringin’ me along?”
“What other men say are merely words. But such a man as you are, speaks from the heart. I know! I could believe you!”
“Miss Silvestre—”
“Isn’t it usual in the West to be called by first names?”
There was a sound of choking. Her wide, wondering eyes raised to his.
“Or is it wrong, Mr. Gordon? To be called by one’s given name seems to me—freedom!”
“My name’s Maurie.”
The hoarseness of his voice was the music of the spheres.
“And mine is Jacqueline.”
“It’s a wonderful name!”
“Say it.”
“Jacqueline!”
She looked up with childish curiosity.
“I have never heard it spoken that way before. It seems—it seems to me free—like your own wild west!”
“Ain’t you been free?”
Her head fell. Her left hand pressed his in her effort to keep back the bubbling laughter. He returned the grip with a mighty interest.
“I have lived all my life in a convent!”
He started.
“I thought you was hangin’ out along Fifth Avenue?”
It was a close squeeze. She blessed a sudden thundering on the slide trombone. All fat men have kind hearts, she decided.
“Yes, but only for a little while. Only for a few months. Then they brought me west.”
The last paragraph of a third instalment rose word by word before her eyes.
“They thought to bury me in the west! Even out here they guard me like a criminal! To-night I had to run away to be with you—you all. But they cannot bury me in this country. I look upon the stars at night and do not feel alone. The desert is my friend. I feel its mystery. And I feel the truth and strength of the men of the desert. Somewhere among them I shall find one friend!”
She bowed her head again.
“Some memory, Jac!” she was saying to herself.
The deep rumble of his voice, broken and passionate, broke in upon her.
“By God, you have found that friend. I’m him!”
“Mr. Gordon—Maurie!”
He could not speak!
The music stopped, and as it died away they caught a clear laugh from across the hall.
“The feller that come with you seems to be havin’ a pretty fair sort of a time,” said Maurie.
Jac looked up. There was Carrigan laughing heartily with Dolly Maxwell. She seemed extremely beautiful when she laughed, and her voice was musical—it rose over the babble of the dance hall like the chime of a bell. Jac set her teeth. She remembered the Carrigan Cut—as Maurie had failed to do it! Dave Carey was approaching.
“Here comes my next partner,” she said, “but—”
Her pause said a thousand things. It made Maurie stand very straight. He was taking the burden of a woman’s happiness upon his shoulders—and such a woman!
“I will never forget!”
The tensity of his emotion made him grammatical.
“Come with me, an’ we’ll sit out the dance. Send Carey away.”
“But if he don’t want to go?”
“I’ll bust his jaw for him if he don’t.”
“Please—Maurie!”
“All right,” he said, relenting slowly. “I’ll see you later.”
As he retreated, Jac turned to Dave Carey. He was standing stiffly, like a soldier awaiting orders.
“‘I’ll see you later!’” she quoted. “I wonder if I should consider that a promise or a threat, Mr. Carey? Or is it just a westernism?”
Dave Carey expanded. He knew that the girl in the fluffy pink dress was watching him with a white face.
“Poor ol’ Maurie,” he said gently. “He ain’t much on manners. He was never given much of a bringin’ up. Maybe you noticed it sort of in his way of talkin’. You’re lookin’ sort of sad.”
She was gazing pensively on the happy faces of Dolly Maxwell and Carrigan. Now she lowered a gloomy eye to the floor.
“I try to seem gay, Mr. Carey.”
“But there’s somethin’ eatin’ on your mind?”
She looked up with childish admiration. “How could you tell? But you westerners see everything.”
The clear music of Dolly Maxwell’s laughter floated to her. Her brow clouded.
“ I cannot help being unhappy, Mr. Carey.”
Carey’s hand slipped down on his hip and then he sighed. No one had been allowed to wear a six-gun into the dance-hall.
“Somebody botherin’ you? P’int him out!”
“If there were, you would protect me, Mr. Carey, I know!”
“Would I!”
“You’ve no idea how secure it makes me feel just to hear you speak that way.”
“Honest?”
“Yes, for I know that you could keep danger and trouble far away from me.”
He cleared his throat. His chest arched.
“Which I’d say I throw a six-gun about as fast as anybody in these parts.”
“‘Throw a six-gun,’ Mr. Carey?”
“Sure,” he explained. “Flash a six—pull a cannon—draw my revolver.”
“Oh, Mr. Carey! Do you mean that you have ever drawn your revolver upon a man?”
“On a man? Me? I guess maybe you ain’t heard any of the boys tell about me!”
“Oh, yes. Of course, I’ve heard a great deal about Dave Carey. You’re the first man Mr. Carrigan pointed out to me when I came into the dance-hall.”
“Is that straight? Well, Carrigan ain’t a bad hand himself, I guess, but you can see by the way he handles himself that he ain’t much in a fight.”
“Can you tell simply by looking at a man?”
“Easiest thing in the world. Watch their hands. Look at big Maurie Gordon over there. Too big! All beef! No nerve! If him an’ me was to mix, I’d fill him full of lead before he ever got his gun clear.”
“Mr. Corey! You wouldn’t shoot at poor Mr. Gordon?”
“He knows enough not to pick no trouble with me.”
“Mr. Carey, somehow I feel that I can talk frankly to you!”
He swelled visibly. His face was red.
“Tag-dance!” bellowed the announcer.
Carrigan was rising to dance again with Dolly Maxwell. The solemn face of Ben Craig drew near. His stare was a promise as she started off with Dave Carey.
With the rehearsal on Maurie Gordon to help, she talked very smoothly now. She reached her great point: “But they cannot bury me in this country. I look upon the stars at night and do not feel alone. And I feel the strength and truth of the men of the desert. Somewhere among them I shall find—”
Here she noted Carrigan standing unemployed at the edge of the hall. He had been tagged quickly, of course, because of pretty Dolly Maxwell. She signaled him with a great appeal in her eyes and before they had taken half a dozen more steps his hand fell on the arm of Carey. As she slipped into the arms of Carrigan, her smile of farewell to Carey was sad and wistful. He stood stock still in the middle of the floor, jolted freely by the passing couples. In his eyes was a melancholy light of the sea-bound traveler who sees the last towers of his home port drop below the horizon.