"Here, give me a hand."
Grasping her raised foot, he lifted her with a sweep to the pony's bare back.
"My, you're strong," was her flattering comment, and she swung the hackima and loped the pony round the field and back to the stable, delighted to see in his eye a frank glow of admiration for her skill.
"Will you lift me down?" she said merrily; not that she had the least need of help, but she liked to feel those strong arms about her; and as he did so, she made herself quite unnecessarily limp and clinging.
Jim did not usually lack words, but Lou-Jane was so voluble that he was completely silenced. At the stable, where Ma Hoomer was milking, Lou-Jane delayed for a moment to whisper: "Stay here till I come for you."
Then she tripped on with Jim at her heels. As they entered the house Hartigan looked at his watch.
"Now please don't hurry," said Lou-Jane. "Ma'll be back in a few minutes, then we'll have a cup of tea. Sit here; you'll find it more comfortable," and she motioned to a sofa.
Sitting down beside him so that they were very close together and giving the archest of smiles, she said:
"I wonder if I might ask you a question."
"Why, sure," said Jim, just a little uneasy at the warmth of the tone. He had instincts, if not experience.
"Were you ever in love?" she said softly. Her arm, resting on the back of the sofa, moved accidentally and lay across his shoulder.
"Why, no—I—no—I guess not," and Hartigan turned red and uncomfortable.
"I wish you would let me be your friend," she continued. "I do like you very much, you know. I want to be your friend and I can help you in so many ways."
She leaned toward him, and Jim, being more terrified than he had ever been, murmured something inarticulate about "not being a lady's man." What he would have done to effect his escape he was never afterward able to decide. A spell of helplessness was upon him, when suddenly a heavy step was heard outside and Pa Hoomer's voice calling:
"Ma, Ma! Who's left that corral gate open?"
Lou-Jane sprang up, shook her bright hair from her flushed face, and with a hasty apology went to meet her father. The Preacher also rose with inexpressible relief, and, after a hurried farewell, he mounted and rode away.
CHAPTER XVIII
The Second Bylow Spree
Woman to-day reverences physical prowess just as much as did her cave forebears, and she glories in the fact that her man is a strong, fighting animal, even though she recognizes the value of other gifts.
Belle was no exception to this human rule; and her eyes sparkled as she listened to Jim's story of that unusual prayer meeting held in the Bylow cabin. It was Hartigan's nature always to see the humorous side of things, and his racy description of the big man with the knife, down on his knees with one eye on the door and the other on the Preacher, was irresistible, much funnier than the real thing. It gave her a genuine thrill, a woman's pleasure in his splendid physical strength.
"Sure," he said with his faint delicious brogue, "it was distasteful to have to annoy them, but there are times when one has to do what he doesn't like."
Then he proceeded to a graphic account of the second ruffian smelling the palms of his hands and squinting through his fingers, praying for grace with his lips and for a club with his heart.
"I don't know what Dr. Jebb will say," she remarked at last, "but it seems to me we must judge by results in this case."
Hypocrite that she was! Had she not that very week denounced the opportunist doctrine that the end justifies the means? But in her delighted eyes and glowing interest Jim found a vast reward.
Dr. Jebb was human and discreet. He smiled and said little about the energetic methods of his assistant; and when next Sunday Charlie Bylow and his wife appeared in church and later joined the group on the anxious seat, he felt that the matter was happily ended as it had oddly begun.
Exactly four weeks after the strenuous prayer meeting word reached the Preacher in a rather pointed way that a keg of the "pizen juice" had arrived on the evening train and was to be carried at once to Pat Bylow's. Hartigan mounted his racer and sped thitherward at nightfall. A half mile from Pat's house was Charlie's, and at the door was the owner, apparently expecting to see him—though this circumstance did not impress Hartigan.
"Can I do anything to help?" he asked.
Hartigan shook his head, laughed lightly, and rode on. At Pat's shanty he tied his horse to the fence, stepped to the door, knocked, and, without waiting, went in. A woman's voice shrilled:
"Pat, here's that —— preacher again."
There were other voices, male and female, in the lean-to kitchen. Pat came in and glared at the intruder. There was a rising fury in his manner, but no evidence of drink.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"Well, to be frank with you," said Hartigan, "I have reason for suspecting an unhelpful indulgence is planned here for to-night, and I was hoping that I might persuade you to reconsider it beforehand. And sure we don't want to get agitated, and I don't want to use language that might sound like disapproval."
He glanced around. There was no sight of any spree in prospect. A glimpse of the kitchen showed only the preparations for an ordinary meal, and Hartigan wondered whether or not there had been a mistake. Could it be that he was the butt of a practical joke?
Pat was sulkily waiting, not knowing just what to say, when voices were heard outside and heavy steps; then the door opened and in came three men, the first carrying under his arm a barrel-shaped bundle. The presence of the Preacher was obviously disconcerting to the new-comers.
"Gimme that," growled Pat. He seized the keg and was marching off with it when Hartigan strode over in front of him.
"Hold on, Pat, let me see that."
Bylow exploded into a torrent of abusive profanity. Some of those present had been witnesses of the previous affair, and realizing what the pastoral visit might mean, they added their voices to the uproar. The language was emphatic rather than concise. The women, too, gave free rein to their tongues, but their observations reflected on their male escorts more harshly than they did on any one or anything else.
However puzzled Hartigan might be by the complexities of the female mind, the mental processes of the unlettered male were quite familiar to him and he showed his comprehension by a simple challenge.
"Now, boys, I don't want to seem thoughtless or indelicate, but I want you to know that I can lick the whole bunch of you with one hand tied behind my back and the other in a sling. Not that I have any intention of doing it, and I apologize to the ladies for mention of the subject, but it may help us to an understanding. If you have not yet gathered my meaning, I will put it simpler. I am here to stop this spree before it begins."
At this moment there was a light shuffling step outside and the door swung back revealing the small, familiar figure of Jack Lowe. A quick, meaning look and some sort of indistinguishable signal passed between Lowe and Pat, whereupon the latter at once placed the keg on the table.
"How do you do, Mr. Hartigan?" said Lowe. "I think we are here for the same purpose."
"Maybe so," said Jim dryly, "I don't know. I'm here to remove temptation from our friends, and before I leave I mean to spill that cursed stuff on the floor."
"You are right," said Lowe, "absolutely right. Pat, let me have that keg," and the schoolteacher proceeded to hammer around the bung, in the way of the orthodox bung-starter. There were murmurs and strong words, but he went on while Hartigan stood guard. The bung came loose, he lifted it out, and put his nostrils to the hole.