But what Terry felt was that it was the same glance
she had turned to him when she stood leaning against
the post earlier that evening. There was a pity
in it, and a sort of despair which he could not understand.
And without saying a word she turned her back on them
and went out of the room as slowly as she had come
into it.
“It don’t mean nothing,” Pollard
hastened to assure Terry. “It don’t
mean a thing in the world except that she’s
a fool girl. The queerest, orneriest, kindest,
strangest, wildest thing in the shape of calico that
ever come into these parts since her mother died before
her. But the more you see of her, the more you’ll
value her. She can ride like a man—no
wear out to her—and she’s got the
courage of a man. Besides which she can sling
a gun like it would do your heart good to see her!
Don’t take nothing she does to heart. She
don’t mean no harm. But she sure does tangle
up a gent’s ideas. Here I been living with
her nigh onto twenty years and I don’t savvy
her none yet. Eh, boys?”
“I’m not offended in the least,”
said Terry quietly.
And he was not, but he was more interested than he
had ever been before by man, woman, or child.
And for the past few seconds his mind had been following
her through the door behind which she had disappeared.
“And if I were to see more of her, no doubt—”
He broke off with: “But I’m not apt
to see much more of any of you, Mr. Pollard. If
I can’t stay here and work off that three-hundred-dollar
debt—”
“Work, hell! No son of Black Jack Hollis
can work for me. But he can live with me as a
partner, son, and he can have everything I got, half
and half, and the bigger half to him if he asks for
it. That’s straight!”
Terry raised a protesting hand. Yet he was touched—intimately
touched. He had tried hard to fit in his place
among the honest people of the mountains by hard and
patient work. They would have none of him.
His own kind turned him out. And among these
men—men who had no law, as he had every
reason to believe—he was instantly taken
in and made one of them.
“But no more talk tonight,” said Pollard.
“I can see you’re played out. I’ll
show you the room.”
He caught a lantern from the wall as he spoke and
began to lead the way up the stairs to the balcony.
He pointed out the advantages of the house as he spoke.
“Not half bad—this house, eh?”
he said proudly. “And who d’you think
planned it? Your old man, kid. It was Black
Jack Hollis himself that done it! He was took
off sudden before he’d had a chance to work it
out and build it. But I used his ideas in this
the same’s I’ve done in other things.
His idea was a house like a ship.
“They build a ship in compartments, eh?
Ship hits a rock, water comes in. But it only
fills one compartment, and the old ship still floats.
Same with this house. You seen them walls.
And the walls on the outside ain’t the only
thing. Every partition is the same thing, pretty
near; and a gent could stand behind these doors safe
as if he was a mile away from a gun. Why?
Because they’s a nice little lining of the best
steel you ever seen in the middle of ’em.
