Cat o' mountain

Blank astonishment crept across the countenance of the blond man. Motionless as the rocks around him he stood, staring down at the hostile face upturned to his.

“Detective? Me?” he muttered.

“Yes, you!” she flared. “Think you’re smart, don’t you? Mebbe you think us folks are a lot of numbskulls, but we ain’t. And seein’ you jest helped me out of a fix, I’ll tell you somethin’, Mister Spy—you better git out of the Traps right quick, while you’re able to travel!”

The man threw back his head and laughed—a gurgling laugh of pure enjoyment.

“Well, if this isn’t rich!” he chuckled. “Old Cap Hampton, the famous dee-teck-tiff! Say, little redbird, I’m glad you dropped in this evening. I was thinking I’d go to-morrow, but now I reckon I’ll stay awhile. Looks as if this place might prove interesting.”

The gray eyes snapped.

“Oh, it’ll be interestin’!” was the ominous prediction. “If you don’t git right outside the Big Wall and stay out—some of the boys will be sleepin’ into new blankets and totin’ a newfangled shotgun, I shouldn’t wonder.”

His gaze dropped to the blankets under her, which were obviously new; then darted to his hammerless gun across the way. When his eyes returned to hers the merriment was gone from them. They glinted like cold blue steel.

“So that’s the game, eh?” His voice was hard-edged. “To kill a stranger for his gun and money. Well, your ‘boys’ are slow. They were snooping around my camp down by the creek last night, but they didn’t have the nerve to do anything but watch. Thanks for your tip. Hereafter I’ll load my gun with buckshot. You can tell your friends that.”

A flush of anger dyed the girl’s cheeks.

“Oh, that ain’t it!” she denied. “Strangers are safe enough, long’s they mind their own business. But we’ve got no use for sneakin’ spies that den up into the rocks like copperheads. And if you think anybody’s scairt of your buckshot, Mister Spy, jest remember this is old Injun country, and folks was gittin’ kilt into the Traps before your grandpop was borned. If all the dead men that’s been shot and tommyhawked round here should git up all together they’d—they’d shake the hills with their trompin’! You and your buckshot—ha, ha, ha!”

Her scornful laugh stung like a whip-lash. Yet, though his sunburned face grew still redder under its sting, he thought: “Lordy, what a stunning little beauty she is with that color! There’s more than one kind of wildcat in these hills, too. I like this place better every minute.”

Aloud he said: “All right, fair damosel. I don’t know——”

Abruptly she started up—winced and paled as her sprained ankle stabbed with pain—but caught the wall and faced him in righteous wrath.

“Don’t you cuss me!” she blazed.

“Huh? I didn’t!”

“You did! You called me a dam-somethin’——”

“Oho! Fair damosel? Why, that’s an old-fashioned compliment—means ‘beautiful girl,’ or something like that. Would you rather be called a cross-eyed old maid?”

“No!” The word snapped. But she smiled in spite of herself.

“You must be a furriner to talk like that,” she added. “Why don’t you say what you mean? Dam-o-sell—that ain’t a name to call folks by. It’s ’most the same as what mom calls me.”

“What’s that?”

“Dambrat.”

He regarded her a moment in silence.

“Your mother calls you a brat?” he slowly asked then.

“Brat—and lots of other things,” she nodded. “And now I’ve got to git home. I’ll git a good hidin’, I shouldn’t wonder, but I won’t stay here——”

“You will!” came his incisive contradiction. “You’ll stay here until that foot is doctored and you’ve had some food. Sit down!”

At the crisp crackle of his command she eyed him in surprised defiance. Her chin lifted, and she took a combative step on the hurt foot. Pallor and pain swept again across her face, and she staggered. He promptly picked her up, squirming and resisting; set her down on the blankets, and inexorably held her there. Then, his eyes boring into hers, he spoke in cool determination.

“Behave yourself. Listen to me.

“You’re not going away until I say so. I’ll not say so until you’re better able to travel. You won’t be able to travel until that ankle is reduced. It won’t be reduced until I’ve worked on it. That’s all there is to that.

“Now about me. I’m no detective. I am Douglas Hampton, a rover, a drifter, with no home and no folks. I’ve been in quite a few places, done quite a few things; but I’ve never been a detective and I don’t intend to be one. My last job was as reporter on a New York newspaper, and I lasted almost a year. Got fired last week because the city editor rode me too hard and I sat him down in his own waste-basket. Now I’m in here because I feel like roughing it awhile and somebody told me it was rough up here in the Shawangunks.

“I intended to stay here only a day or two and then ramble along, stopping again wherever I found something that hit my fancy. But now that people around here think they’re going to kick me out—I’ll stay longer. I’m one of those cantankerous chaps who can be coaxed a mile but can’t be kicked an inch. I always kick back.

“As I started to say awhile ago, I don’t know the history of this hole in the hills, but I’m right willing to learn all about it—past and present. And if people around here want to consider me a detective, let ’em. I don’t care what they think. The only reason why I’m telling you who I am is—well, because I feel like it.”

With that he took his hands from her shoulders and straightened up. She made no move to rise again. Steadily she probed his face, and slowly she nodded.

“You talk straight,” she admitted. “But if you ain’t here to spy, what are you doin’ up here, hid into the ledge? Folks said you went out through the Gap this mornin’ with your pack and all. So to-night I thought you must be some new feller.”

“I did go. I moved because I want to sleep at night instead of watching men sneak around in the bushes. Then I decided to come back, and I came. Didn’t try to hide myself, either—tramped right along the road. You people ought to keep sharper watch on desperate dee-teck-tiffs who wander in and out of here; you never know when they’ll come back.”

His cheerful grin brought an answering smile this time. But it did not last long. At his next question it vanished.

“By the way, what am I supposed to detect in here? Detectives have to detect something, you know.”

“You be careful, mister, or you’ll detect a rock fallin’ off onto your head from up top, or a load of buckshot scatterin’ out of the brush. Some of the boys are awful careless. If you figger to stay round here you better stay away from these ledges—and keep out of caves—and don’t ask too many questions.”

“M-hm. I take it that this is a good place to keep still.”

Her tongue made no answer; but her eyes narrowed at the emphasis on the word “still.” He laughed again and bent to freshen the fire.

When he had moved the sticks inward upon their common focus and the flame was growing brighter and hotter, he frowned at a canvas water-bag pendent from a splinter of rock; thoughtfully eyed the girl’s inflamed ankle and gashed arm; glanced at a small coffee-pot at the edge of the blaze, and ran a hand through his light hair. Then his face brightened. Rising, he rummaged in a small bag of waterproof fabric, from which he produced two flat tins of tobacco.

“Have to economize on water,” he said. “All I own is in that cloth bucket, and the spring’s a deuce of a distance down. Between bathing your arm and making coffee and fixing your ankle—well, I just can’t cook that ankle as it should be done. But I can draw out most of the soreness with a tobacco poultice. That’s what we’ll have to do.”

She eyed the two tins in his hand.

“Is that all the tobacco you’ve got?”

“Why, yes. But it’s enough to do the trick.”

“Then what’ll you smoke? There ain’t any stores here.”

“Then I don’t smoke for awhile,” was the matter-of-fact reply.

Dropping the cans beside her, he strode over to the lantern and brought it and the gun to the overhanging wall. Swiftly then he put coffee to boil, dipped a cupful of water from the canvas bag, flipped a clean white handkerchief from the ditty-bag, and returned to her. Without a word she let him inspect the lacerated arm.

“You got a nasty rip,” he stated, scowling. “Right along the bone. How did you do it? Fall?”

“Yes.” Her tone was more gentle now than it had yet been, and her eyes dwelt on the sober face bending over the injury. “I’ve—I’ve got a little secret up here—a hole into the rocks that’s been my playhouse since I was little, and when mom’s awful mean or pop’s ugly drunk or—or I can’t stand it down there, I come up here and stay all by my own self. This time I got to dreamin’, I guess, and I went to sleep there. And when I woke up it was night. Mebbe I’d ought to have stayed there till mornin’, but I was awful hungry, and I tried to git down the rocks and took a fall.”

He nodded sympathetically, bathing the wound with gentle touch.

“And then that mis’rable catamount had to smell me. They’re awful bad when they’re hungry and smell blood. I thought I was a goner till your light showed. Who ever told you a catamount would run if you said boo?”

“Somebody who didn’t know as much as he thought he did, I guess.”

“I guess so too. They’ll run from a dog ’most every time—even a little yippin’ yappin’ tarrier—and mostly they’ll run from a man, but not always. If they’ve kilt somethin’ or are jest goin’ to kill somethin’, look out. And they’re ready to tear up a young ’un, or a hurt woman, any time. If you shoot ’em you’ve got to kill ’em stone dead or they’ll rip you. Jonah Hay, he kilt one last winter—shot it four times and blew its jaw off and everything—and it lived long enough to git to him and claw his legs terrible. Its hide was longer than Jonah is himself, and Jonah stands six foot.”

He nodded again, absorbed in his work but marveling at her new friendliness. Now that she was talking, she chattered as easily as if to an old friend.

“And there was Sam Codd—he went to chop wood and run onto a little bobcat, nowheres near as big’s a catamount. The critter had kilt a rabbit, and it come at Sam, ready to jump right onto him. Sam, he backed more’n a quarter of a mile through the snow, holdin’ his axe ready to bust the critter, till he got to his cabin. Then he jumped in and got his gun. But by the time he come out the cat was gone back to the rabbit, and when he got there the rabbit was et and nothin’ left but blood and tracks.”

He desisted from his cleaning of the arm, which had remained as stoically steady as if it were not in the least tender. Tearing the edges of the big handkerchief, he bound it around the injury and carefully knotted the edge-strips. Then he turned to the coffee, which now was steaming. In a moment he put a cupful of the hot liquid in her hands and dumped the grounds from the pot.

“Only one good cupful to a pot, but it’s strong enough to knock you over,” he explained. “And I need the pot now for your ankle. After the tobacco gets to drawing I’ll cook some grub and make more coffee——”

He paused suddenly, staring at one of the tobacco-tins he had picked up. Its blue revenue-paper seal was broken.

“Now when did I open that can?” he puzzled, turning up the lid. “I was sure these were fresh. Confound it, it’s only half full!”

She made no answer. She blew on the coffee and took a tentative sip.

“Ooh! It’s scaldin’ hot!”

“Uh-huh. Well, this other can’s full, anyhow. Guess I can make out.”

While the fresh water came to a boil he squinted repeatedly at the opened can, half rifled of its fragrant brown slices. He did not see the impish glances she threw at him. Nor, when he brought the hot water, the tobacco, and more handkerchiefs, did he spy the laughing light in the demurely downcast eyes.

With utmost care, though with necessary firmness, he bound the hot-water-soaked slices around the swollen ankle. Then he poured more hot water on the bandages until, despite herself, she flinched and drew up the foot.

“That’ll do, I reckon,” he said. “Lucky I have plenty of handkerchiefs. That’s one thing I’m a crank about—plenty of clean handkerchiefs and socks. Now I’ll warm up some beans a la can.”

“Don’t you want a smoke?” she teased.

“Well, since the tobacco’s all gone, I do,” he frankly admitted. “However——”

“Then fill your pipe!” And from under the blanket-edge she produced the missing slices.

“Well, you—you——” he stuttered.

“Now don’t you call me a dam-sell again, mister! You stuff your pipe and have a good smoke.”

He scowled, grinned, laughed, produced a stubby briar, and obeyed orders.

“I’ve a large mind to spank you,” he threatened, between puffs. “But I never like to pick on a cripple. So instead I’ll condemn you to stay here all night.”

“That’s all right,” she countered serenely. “I’ve made up my mind to stay anyway.”

He missed two puffs while he stared at her.

“Glad to see you’re showing sense,” he blurted. “But what’s the reason for the sudden change of heart?”

“You’re smokin’ the reason. ’Most any man round here would have kilt that catamount. That’d be fun. But none of ’em would use up his last smokin’ on a woman—not if both her legs were busted. A feller that would do that is worth trustin’.”

He threw up his hands.

“Talk about feminine logic! That beats ’em all,” he laughed. “Well, fair dam—I beg pardon—young woman, just who are you, if I may ask?”

The answer staggered him.

“Me? Oh, I’m only Nigger Nat’s girl.”

Over his pipe he blinked at her.

“My name’s Marry,” she went on. “Marry Oaks. My whole name is Marryin’, but it’s Marry for short.”

“Marion,” he repeated absently. “But who’s Nigger Nat? Not a colored man!”

The frank eyes looked steadily back at him.

“Why, yes he is. He’s yeller—half nigger. He’s my pop. And mom’s part Injun.”