Code of the West. Zane Grey

plodded up the steps and into the store, looking neither right nor left. He was aware of footsteps following him in, but he was too miserable to take any further notice of anyone.

      “Hello!” he called into the telephone.

      “Hello! Is that you, Cal?” was the eager reply.

      “Yes, it’s me.”

      “This is Mary Stockwell talking. . . . Cal, has the stage come with my sister?”

      “I reckon so,” replied Cal, grimly.

      “Oh—oh—Cal, dear boy, is she all right?”

      “I reckon so.”

      “Oh—hurry, Cal! Fetch her out. I’m wild to see her.—And, Cal, you’re glad now I made you go, aren’t you? You’ll forgive me for fooling you—about the picture?”

      “I’ll never forgive you—never,” blurted out Cal, hoarsely.

      There was no instant response. Then the teacher’s voice came again, different in tone. “Why, Cal—you don’t mean that! It was only fun. You’ve played jokes on me. And I thought this would please you. I was so glad you alone of the boys offered to go—to meet what you supposed would be a cross, ugly old maid. It was fine of you, Cal.—Why are you offended—why won’t you forgive me?”

      “Aw, because I’ve been made a damn fool before a crowd,” replied Cal. “Wess an’ the boys came in to play some low-down trick on me. . . . You see, teacher, I was lookin’ for—for the person who’d look like the picture you showed me. An’ when a—a pretty kid of a girl hops out of the stage I—I never thought it might be your sister. I was the last to find that out. . . . Then—some one I’ve no use for went up to her—an’ when I woke up an’ introduced myself—said you’d sent me to meet her—then—then she insulted me right before him—an’ all the crowd.”

      “Insulted you! Oh, Cal, don’t say that,” returned Miss Stockwell, in distress. “I’m sorry, Cal. Why, I wanted you to be the lucky boy. . . . Tell me, who went up to Georgiana? Was it Bid Hatfield?”

      “Yes, it was, an’ she told him she’d prefer to go with him. Right before Wess an’ the boys an’ everybody! That’s what’s so bad. Why, teacher, you don’t know the West. I’ll never live that down. It’s only fair to say Hatfield was first to show your sister courtesy. But I was locoed, I tell you. . . . Oh, I’ve made a mess of it. . . . Teacher, I’ve told her she’d better go home with Wess—that if she goes with Hatfield it might make bad feelin’ for you.”

      “Cal, my sister is coming home with you,” declared Miss Stockwell, in a voice Cal well remembered. “Call her to the phone.”

      Thus admonished, Cal turned away, smarting and tingling from the forced expression of his feelings. He almost bumped into Georgiana, who evidently had been standing there. The pertness had gone from her face. She looked perturbed, and her eyes met his rather questioningly.

      “Your sister wants to speak to you,” said Cal, motioning toward the telephone.

      The girl ran, and snatching up the receiver she stood on her tiptoes. “Hello—hello! This is Georgie. . . . Yes! Yes! Oh, Mary—sister—I’m wild with joy! I’m here—out West—will see you soon. I’ve so much to tell you—and presents from mother—everybody.”

      Cal felt a singular break in his abject misery, and it came through the sweet, low, broken voice of the girl. It struck strangely on his sensitive ear.

      “Yes, Mary, I hear you—I’ll listen,” went on the girl, eagerly. At that Cal halted, half turned, and watched the slim slender form strained up before the telephone. He heard the squeaking of the voice coming over the wire and it seemed to be direct, forceful speech. Miss Georgiana started. “Oh, Mary!” she expostulated, appealingly. Then she became perfectly motionless, intent, and absorbed. Cal divined that Miss Stockwell was saying some strong things to this little sister. That seemed to afford him a melancholy gratification. How trim and neat the slight figure of the girl as she stood there breathlessly! He saw the golden rebellious curls peeping from under her bonnet. Then she spoke again, evidently under different stress. “Mary dear, I’m afraid I’ve been rude, ungracious, to Mr. Thurman. But when I explain you won’t think so badly of me. I ran into some deep stuff here, believe me. . . . Yes, I will start at once and with him—if he’ll take me now. Good-by.”

      She hung up the receiver and stood a moment longer, ponderingly. Then she wheeled swiftly and almost ran up to Cal. It was not the same girl. A blush dyed out the red tints in her cheeks.

      “Mr. Cal,” she began, “sister has explained—about my aunt’s picture—how your brothers and cousins refused to meet me—that you alone were kind enough—good enough to come. That those boys had framed up some trick to play on you. . . . I apologize for what I said. I’m ashamed. Won’t you forgive me—and take me to Mary?”

      She had seemed to come closer all the time she was speaking, until her appealing hand touched his arm. She lifted her face that suddenly became beautiful and sweet in Cal’s dawning sight. Her violet eyes held him. They were darkening with thought, troubled, sincere, yet audacious. And it seemed that before them, all in a flash, he fell crashing to the first headlong love of his life. After that nothing was clear. The sweet face floated before him, hazily, the face of a dream. He spoke, trying to tell her he would be glad to take her home. Then—proudest moment he had ever known—she was holding his arm, walking beside him out of the door, across the porch, with her beautiful head erect, looking up at him, seeing none of the gaping bystanders, gliding so coolly and disdainfully past Wess and his comrades, oblivious of the crestfallen Hatfield—down the steps and out to the car.

      There Cal became again possessed of some semblance of rationality. But how he thrilled! How bells rang in his ears!

      “May I ride in front beside you?” she asked, as if that was what she most wanted to do of all things in the world. She looked it. She spoke sweetly, audibly to the listeners on the porch. But she apparently did not know of their existence. She did not hear the shuffling of their boots as they began to stir forward.

      “Sure can,” replied Cal, trying to catch his breath. “I’ll pack your bags in back.”

      At this juncture Tuck Merry loomed up, carrying his canvas bag. His cadaverous face did not betray that he and Cal had met, though deep in his eyes gleamed a twinkle of fun and zest over the situation.

      “Buddy, would you give a fellow a lift along the road?” he inquired.

      “Sure. Pile in with your pack,” replied Cal, heartily. Right then and there he wanted to hug this lanky new-found friend.

      Merry and his pack and the girl’s numerous pieces of baggage comfortably filled the after section of the Ford. Then Cal cranked the engine. It started with a strange sound, entirely foreign to him. Was it only the confusion of his brain? Anyway, it started. Cal climbed in beside the girl, tremendously aware of her presence, of her perfect self-possession and poise, of the smile that enveloped him. His hands shook a little. Then when he tried to drive off he was dumbfounded to see that the car would not budge an inch. The engine had stopped.