Me Smith

woman’s got her sull on,” he muttered, but his voice was pleasant enough when he asked: “Ain’t you glad to see me, Prairie Flower?”
    The woman’s face did not relax.
    “Where you been?” she demanded.
    He stopped unsaddling and looked at her.
    “I never had no boss, me—Smith,” he answered with significance.
    “You got a woman!” she burst out fiercely.
    Smith’s brow cleared.
    “Sure I got a woman.”
    “You lie to me!”
    “I call her Prairie Flower—my woman.” He reached and took her clenched hand.
    The tense muscles gradually relaxed, and the darkness lifted from her face like a cloud that has obscured the sun. She smiled and her eyelids dropped shyly.
    “Why you go and no tell me?” she asked plaintively.
    “It was a business trip, Prairie Flower, and I like to talk to you of love, not business,” he replied evasively.
    She looked puzzled.
    “I not know you have business.”
    “Oh, yes; I do a rushin’ business—by spells.”
    She persisted, unsatisfied:
    “But what kind of business?”
    Smith laughed outright.
    “Well,” he answered humorously, “I travels a good deal—in the dark of the moon.”
    “Smith!”
    She was keener than he had thought, for she drew her right hand slyly under her left arm in the expressive Indian sign signifying theft. He did not answer, so she said in a tone of mingled fear and reproach:
    “You steal Indian horses!”
    “Well?”
    She grasped his coat-sleeve.
    “Don’t do dat no more! De Indians’ hearts are stirred. Dey mad. Dis time maybe dey not ketch you, but some time, yes! You get more brave and you steal from white man. You steal two, t’ree cow, maybe all right, but when you steal de white man’s horses de rope is on your neck. I know—I have seen. Some time de thief he swing in de wind, and de magpie pick at him, and de coyote jump at him. Yes, I have seen it like dat.”
    Smith shivered.
    “Don’t talk about them things,” he said impatiently. “I’ve been near lynchin’ twice, and I hates the looks of a slip-noose yet; but I gotta have money.”
    As he stood above her, looking down upon her anxious face, a thought came to him, a plan so simple that he was amazed that it had not occurred to him before. Undoubtedly she had money in the bank, this infatuated, love-sick-woman—the Scotchman would have taught her how to save and care for it; but if she had not, she had resources which amounted to the same: the best of security upon which she could borrow money. He was sure that her cattle and horses were free of mortgages, and there was the coming crop of hay. She had promised him the proceeds from that, if he would stay, but the sale of it was still months away.
    “If I had a stake, Prairie Flower,” he said mournfully, “I’d cut out this crooked work and quit takin’ chances. But a feller like me has got pride: he can’t go around without two bits in his pocket, and feel like a man. If I had the price, I’d buy me a good bunch of cattle, get a permit, and range ’em on the reserve.”
    “When we get tied right,” said the woman eagerly, “I give you de stake quick .”
    Smith shook his head.
    “Do you think I’m goin’ to have the whole country sayin’ I just married you for what you got? I’ve got some feelin’s, me—Smith, and before I marry a rich woman, I want to have a little somethin’ of my own.”
    She looked pleased, for Susie’s words had rankled.
    “How big bunch cattle you like buy? How much money you want?”
    He shook his head dejectedly.
    “More money nor I can raise, Prairie Flower. Five—ten thousand dollars—maybe more.” He watched the effect of his words narrowly. She did not seem startled by the size of the sums he mentioned. He added: “There’s nothin’ in monkeyin’ with just a few.”
    “I got de money, and I gift it to you. My heart is right to you, white man!” she said passionately.
    “Do you mean it, Prairie Flower?”
    “Yas, but don’t tell Susie.”
    He watched her going up the path, her hips wobbling, her step heavy, and he hated her. Her love irritated him; her devotion was ridiculous. He saw in her only a means to an end, and he was without scruples or pity.
    “She ain’t no more to me nor a dumb brute,” he said contemptuously.
    Smith felt that he was able to foretell with considerable accuracy the nature of his interview with Susie upon their meeting, and her opening words did not fall short of his expectations.
    “You’re all right, you are!”