Man to Man, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  MISS BLUE CLOAK KNOWS WHEN SHE'S BEAT

  Half an hour later, his clothing wrung out and sun-dried after afashion, Packard dressed, swung up into the saddle, and turned backinto the trail. And through the trees, where their rugged trunks madean open vista, he saw not two hundred yards away the gay spot of colormade by the blue cloak. So she was still here, lingering down the roadthat wound about the lake's shores, when already he had fancied her faron her way. He wondered for the first time where that way led?

  He drew rein among the pines, waiting in his turn for her to go on.The blue cloak did not move. He leaned to one side to see better,peering around a low-flung cedar bough. His trail here led to theroad; he must pass her unless she went on soon.

  Beside the vivid hue of her cloak the sunlight streaming through theforest showed him another bright, gay color, a streak of red whichthrough the underbrush he was at first at a loss to account for. Hewould have said that she was seated in a low-bodied, red wagon, were itnot that if such had been the case he must have seen the horses.

  "An automobile!" he guessed.

  He rode on a score of steps and stopped again. Sure enough, there shesat at the steering-wheel of a long, rakish touring-car, the slump ofher shoulders vaguely hinting at despair and perhaps a stalled engine.His grin widened joyously. He touched his horse with his one spur,assumed an expression of vast indifference, and rode on. She jerked upher head, looked about at him swiftly, gave him her shoulder again.

  He rode into the road and came on with tantalizing slowness, knowingthat she would want to turn again and guessing that she would conquerthe impulse. A few paces behind her he stopped again, rolling a freshcigarette and seeming, as he had been before the meeting, the mostleisurely man in the world.

  He saw her lean forward, busied with ignition and starter; he fanciedthat the little breeze brought to him the faintest of guardedexclamations.

  "The blamed old thing won't go," chuckled Packard with vastsatisfaction. "Some car, too. Boyd-Merril Twin Eight, latest model.And dollars to doughnuts I know just what's wrong--and she doesn't!"

  She ignored him with such a perfect unconsciousness of his presence inthe same world with her that he was moved to a keen admiration.

  "I'll bet her face is as red as a beet, just the same," was hischeerful thought. "And right here, Steve Packard, is where you don't'crowd in' until you're called on."

  She straightened up, sitting very erect, her two hands tense upon theuseless wheel. He noted the poise of her head and found in itsomething almost queenly. For a moment they were both very still, hewatching and feeling his sense pervaded by the glowing sensation thatall was right with the world, she holding her face averted and keepingher thoughts to herself.

  Presently she got out and lifted the hood, looking in upon the engine,despairing. But did not glance toward him. Then she closed the hoodand returned to her seat, once more attempting to get some sort ofresponse from the starting system. Packard felt himself fairly beamingall over.

  "I may be a low-lived dog and a deep-dyed villain besides," he wasfrank to admit to himself. "But right now I'm having the time of mylife. And I wouldn't bet two bits which way she's going to jump next,either--never having met just her type before."

  "Well?" she said abruptly.

  She hadn't moved, hadn't so much as turned her head to look at him. Ifshe had done so just then perhaps Packard's extremely good-humoredsmile, a contented, eminently satisfied smile, would not have warmedher to him.

  "Speak to me?" he asked innocently.

  "I did. Simply because there's nobody else to speak to. Don't happento know anything about motor-cars, do you?"

  It was all very icily enunciated, but had no noticeably freezing effectupon the man's mood.

  "I sure do," he told her cheerfully. "Know 'em from front bumper totail-lamp. Yours is a Boyd-Merril, Twin Eight, this year's model.Fox-Whiting starting and lighting system. Great little car, too, ifyou ask me."

  "What I was going to ask you," came the cool little voice, morehaughtily than ever, "was not what you think of the car but if you--ifyou happened to know how to make the miserable thing go."

  "Sure," he replied to the back of her head, with all of his formerpleasant manner. "Pull out the ignition button; push down the starterpedal with your right foot; throw out the clutch with your left; puther into low; let in your clutch slowly; give her a little----"

  "Smarty!" He had counted upon some such interruption, and chuckledwhen it came. "I know all that."

  "Then why don't you do it?" he queried innocently. "You're rightsquare in my way, the road's narrow, and I've got to be moving on."

  "I don't do it," she informed that portion of the world which layimmediately in front of her slightly elevated nose, "because it won'twork. I pulled out the ignition button and--and nothing happened.Then I tried to force down the starter pedal and the crazy thing won'tgo down."

  "I see," said Packard interestedly. "Don't know a whole lot aboutcars, do you?"

  "The world wasn't made overnight," she said tartly. "I've had thispesky thing a month. Do you know what's the matter?"

  He took his time in replying. He was so long about it, in fact, thatMiss Blue Cloak stirred uneasily and finally shot him a questioninglook over her shoulder, just to make sure, he suspected, that he hadn'tslipped away and left her.

  "Well?" she asked again.

  "Speak to me?" he repeated himself, pretending to start from a deepabstraction. "Oh, do I know what's the matter? Sure!"

  She waited a reasonable length of time for him to go on. He, secure inthe sense of his own mastery of the situation, waited for her. Betweenthem they allowed it to grow very quiet there in the wood by the lakeshore. He saw her glance furtively at the lowering sun.

  "If you do know," she said finally and somewhat faintly, but asfrigidly as ever, "will you tell me or won't you?"

  "Why," he said, as though he had not thought of it, "I don't know. IfI were really sure that I was needed. You know it's mighty hardtelling these days when you stumble upon a damsel in distress whether astranger's aid is welcome or not. If there's one thing I won't do it'sshove myself forward when I'm not wanted."

  "You're a nasty animal!" she cried hotly.

  "For all I know," he resumed in an untroubled tone, "the end of yourjourney may be just around the bend, about a hundred yards off. And ifI plunged in to be of assistance I might be suspected of being a freshguy."

  "It's half a dozen miles to the ranch-house," she condescended to tellhim. "And it's going to get dark in no time. And if you want to know,Mr. Smarty, that's as close as I've ever come or ever will come toasking anything of any man that ever lived."

  He could have sat there until dark just for the sheer joy of teasingher, making her pay a little for her recent treatment of him. Butthere was a note of finality in her voice which did not escape him; inanother moment she would jump down and go on on foot and he knew it.So at last he rode up to the car, dismounted, and lifted the hood.

  "Ignition," he ordered her.

  She pulled out the little button again. His eyes upon hers, his grinfrank and unconcealed, he took a stone from the road and with it tappedgently upon the shaft running from the pump. Immediately there camethat little hissing sound she had waited for.

  "Starter," he commanded.

  And now her foot upon the pedal achieved the desired results; theengine responded, humming pleasantly. He closed the hood and stoodback eying her with a mingling of amusement and triumph. Her facereddened slowly. And then, startling him with its unheraldedunexpectedness, a gay peal of laughter from her made quite another girlof her, a dimpling, radiant, altogether adorable and desirable creature.

  "Oh, I know when I'm beat!" she cried frankly. "You've put one acrosson me to-day, Mr. Man. And since you meant well all along and werejust simply the blunderheaded man God made you, I guess I have been alittle cat. Good luck to you and a worth-while trail to r
ide."

  She blew him a friendly kiss from her brown finger-tips, bent over herwheel, and took the first turn in the road at a swiftly acquired speedwhich left Steve Packard behind in dust and growing wonderment.

  "And she's been driving only a month," was his softly whistled comment."Reckless little devil!"

  Then, in his turn cocking a speculative eye at the sun in the west, herode on, following in the track made by the spinning automobile tires.