United States or Cambodia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Jew waited, patient, pliant, smiling, and then enumerated his reasons. He talked to Yarnall for an hour, at the end of which time, Yarnall, his eyes still twinkling, sent for Jane. The two men sat in a log-walled room, known as the office. Yarnall's big desk crowded a stove. There was no other furniture except shelves and a box seat beneath a window.
She had transferred her attention completely to him. Yarnall watched them. He was an Englishman of much experience and this picture of the skillful, cultivated, handsome Jew angling deftly for the gaunt, young savage diverted him hugely. He screwed up his eyes to get a picture of it.
"I came to ask you about someone. I heard that you had a woman on your ranch, a woman who came in and didn't give you any history. I want to see her if I may." He was actually fighting an unevenness of breath, and Yarnall, unemotional as he was, was gripped with sympathetic suspense. "I want," stammered the young man, "to know her name." Yarnall swore.
He had brought her back and her face stiffened. She gave him a startled, almost angry look, dug her heels into her horse and broke into a gallop; nor could he win from her another word. A few days before he left, he took Yarnall into his confidence. At first the rancher would do nothing but laugh. "Jane on the boards! That's a notion!" followed by explosion after explosion of mirth.
And he was sure kind to me even when I told him 'no. 'T was that same evening that the boy from Lazy-Y rode in and claimed me for a cook. Mr. Yarnall is a trusting man. He took me and didn't ask any questions. I told him I was 'Jane' and that I wasn't planning to let him know more. He hasn't asked me another question since.
I can give you the New York people's address, but first, for Jane's sake, I'm a pretty good friend of hers, I think a lot of Jane, I'll have to know what you want with her what she is to you." Pierre's pupils widened till they all but swallowed the smoke-colored iris. "She is my wife," he said. Again Yarnall swore. But he lit a cigarette and took his time about answering.
"I amuse you, don't I? Well, I'm not always so all-fired funny," drawled the creature, lowering her head a little. "No. I've heard that you're not. You rather run things here, I gather; got the boys 'plumb-scared'?" "Did Mr. Yarnall tell you that?" "Yes. I've just in the last few minutes remembered who you are. You're Jane.
Yarnall was used to the Western fashion of doing business. He knew that it would be a long time before the young man would come to his point. But the Englishman was in no hurry, for he liked his visitor and found his talk diverting enough. Landis had been in Alaska a lumber camp. He had risen to be foreman and now he was off for a vacation, but had to go back soon. He had been everywhere.
The next day, a day for ever black in the American calendar, witnessed the surprisal of general Sumter and the release of the tory prisoners, one of whom immediately went his way and told colonel Tarleton that he had seen Peter Yarnall, the day before, keeping guard over the king's friends, prisoners to the rebels. The poor man's house was quickly surrounded by the British cavalry.
Pierre laid his hand on the older man's wrist and gave it a queer urgent and beseeching shake. After a moment of searching scrutiny, Yarnall bent his head. "Very well," said he shortly; "come in." A young man who had just landed in New York from one of the big, adventurous transatlantic liners hailed a taxicab and was quickly drawn away into the glitter and gayety of a bright winter morning.
Word Of The Day