He stirred in his seat nervously. “Why, fifty, about,” he answered with confusion.
“Then you’ll be wise not to go looking for anniversaries in blizzards, when they’re few at the best,” she said with a gentle and dangerous smile.
“Fifty-why, I’m as young as most men of thirty,” he responded with an uncertain laugh. “I’d have come here to-day if it had been snowing pitchforks and chain-lightning. I made up my mind I would. You saved my life, that’s dead sure; and I’d be down among the moles if it wasn’t for you and that Piegan pony of yours. Piegan ponies are wonders in a storm-seem to know their way by instinct. You, too—why, I bin on the plains all my life, and was no better than a baby that day; but you—why, you had Piegan in you, why, yes—”
He stopped short for a moment, checked by the look in her face, then went blindly on: “And you’ve got Blackfoot in you, too; and you just felt your way through the tornado and over the blind prairie like a bird reaching for the hills. It was as easy to you as picking out a moverick in a bunch of steers to me. But I never could make out what you was doing on the prairie that terrible day. I’ve thought of it a hundred times. What was you doing, if it ain’t cheek to ask?”
“I was trying to lose a life,” she answered quietly, her eyes dwelling on his face, yet not seeing him; for it all came back on her, the agony which had driven her out into the tempest to be lost evermore.
He laughed. “Well, now, that’s good,” he said; “that’s what they call speaking sarcastic. You was out to save, and not to lose, a life; that was proved to the satisfaction of the court.” He paused and chuckled to himself, thinking he had been witty, and continued: “And I was that court, and my judgment was that the debt of that life you saved had to be paid to you within one calendar year, with interest at the usual per cent for mortgages on good security. That was my judgment, and there’s no appeal from it. I am the great Justinian in this case.”
“Did you ever save anybody’s life?” she asked, putting the bottle of cordial away, as he filled his glass for the third time.
“Twice certain, and once dividin’ the honours,” he answered, pleased at the question.
“And did you expect to get any pay, with or without interest?” she added.
“Me? I never thought of it again. But yes—by gol, I did! One case was funny, as funny can be. It was Ricky Wharton over on the Muskwat River. I saved his life right enough, and he came to me a year after and said, You saved my life, now what are you going to do with it? I’m stony broke. I owe a hundred dollars, and I wouldn’t be owing it if you hadn’t saved my life. When you saved it I was five hunderd to the good, and I’d have left that much behind me. Now I’m on the rocks, because you insisted on saving my life; and you just got to take care of me.’ I ‘insisted!’ Well, that knocked me silly, and I took him on—blame me, if I didn’t keep Ricky a whole year, till he went north looking for gold. Get pay—why, I paid! Saving life has its responsibilities, little gal.”