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Updated: June 5, 2025
"Making something." She held the belt by one hand to let it slip through the other. He reached for it. "My! it's pretty! Wish you'd make me a watch-fob like that." She flushed and dimpled. "I'd like to," she said. "I'll wear it as an amulet." He gave her back the belt, and their hands touched. She started nervously. "Why, Miss Marylyn!" he said gently. "You afraid of me?" "No." It was whispered.
He couldn't do any more if he knew about the pole." So, her conscience satisfied, she decided to keep her own counsel. That decision cost her abundant grief and penitence in the months to come. While Marylyn was busy with her troublesome problem, a similar one was running in Dallas' brain, where it called for calculation. Would Matthews threaten the shack that day? It was scarcely probable.
"Don't you understand? my keeping still was just as if I'd killed pa! Oh, it was! So I can't tell now!" "Marylyn " "Promise you won't, oh, promise you won't!" And she went down, crumpling into a little, miserable heap. Quickly, he lifted her. "Well, we won't tell her then, not if you don't want to but we'll have to some day." "Some day maybe but not now." "All right, then not now."
As Marylyn rose to pour the coffee, he quickly changed the subject. "Fort 's a quiet place, these days," he observed, accepting a cup. "Wonder when the troops'll be back." The section-boss sipped at his saucer. "Ah don' carry on no dealin's with Yankee soldier trash," he answered curtly. "They keep they side o' th' river, an' we-all keep ourn." Lounsbury laughed.
But Dallas was leaning forward, interested. "That's on account of our teachers," she said. "There was a school-house up the track, in Texas, and we went to it on the hand-car. Every year we had a different teacher, and all of 'em came from big Eastern places like New Orleans or St. Louis. So so you see, we kinda got towny from our school-ma'ams." "One had a gold tooth," put in Marylyn.
His season of delight over the morning's news had been brief, and was now succeeded by thorough disquiet. He hobbled to and fro, from the hearth, where hung a pail of fragrant coffee, to the farther front window. Lounsbury remarked his evident worry and, not understanding it, bent down inquiringly toward Marylyn. She was seated on a buffalo robe before the fire, zealously tending the coffee.
Then darted through her mind the remembrance of Marylyn's midnight confidence. It was a blow on a wound. She glanced at her sister entreatingly. And what she fancied she read in the other's eyes instantly altered the desire to turn made her send the mules forward at a better pace. Marylyn was sitting stiffly upright, bracing herself with her hands. Her head was up, her look was eager and fixed.
She drew up the well-bucket, hand over hand, and washed in its generous leak. Within, the night wind was changing and sweetening the air. As the younger girl bustled about, the elder put on a fresher dress, and smoothed and plaited her hair. Again, that strange elation! She was almost glad. "Supper!" sang out Marylyn. Dallas started consciously.
It ain't likely th' man'll come along this late. An' ef he don' show up pretty soon, he ain't got a chanst. 'Cause, when his six months is gone, Ah'll make another trip t' Bismarck, contes' his entry, hev it cancelled an' file. Then, we's safe." She silenced him, for Marylyn was entering, and quit the shack. Outside, before the warped door, she paused. "He's always so sure of himself.
That night, after Squaw Charley had come and gone, Dallas returned from the lean-to, where she had fed and bedded Simon and the team, to find Marylyn lying before the hearth, her face flushed and wet with tears. Instantly, all concern, the elder girl knelt beside her. "Marylyn," she begged, smoothing the soft, unbraided hair spread out upon the robe, "Marylyn, what's the matter?" A long sob.
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