Read Me Smith for Free Online

down—but don’t humor ’em. You can’t treat a cook like a real man. Ev’ry reg’lar cook has a screw loose or he wouldn’t be a cook. Cookin’ ain’t no man’s job. I never had no use for reg’lar cooks—me, Smith.
    “All you women need ribbing up once in awhile,” he added, as, laying his hand lightly on her arm, he let it slide its length until it touched her fingers. He gave them a gentle pressure and resumed his seat against the wall.
    The woman’s eyes glowed as she looked at him. His authoritative attitude appealed to her whose ancestors had dressed game, tanned hides, and dragged wood for their masters for countless generations. The growing passion in her eyes did not escape Smith.
    In the long silence which followed he looked at her steadily; finally he said:
    “Well, I guess I’ll saddle up. You look ‘just so’ to me, woman—but I got to go.”
    She laid down the rags of her mat and “threw him the sign” for which he had waited. It said:
    “My heart is high; it is good toward you. Talk to me—talk straight.”
    He shook his head sadly.
    “No, no, Singing Bird; I am headed for the Mexican border—many, many sleeps from here.”
    She arose and walked to his side.
    He felt a sudden and violent dislike for her flabby, swaying hips, her heavy step, as she moved toward him. He knew that the game was won, and won so easily it was a school-boy’s play.
    “Why you go?” she demanded, and the disappointment in her eyes was so intense as to resemble fear. “What you do dere?”
    He looked at her through half-closed eyes.
    “Did you ever hear of wet horses?”
    She shook her head.
    “I deals in wet horses—me, Smith.”
    The woman stared at him uncomprehendingly.
    “Down there on the border,” he explained, “you buy the horses on the Mexico side. You buy ’em when the Mexican boss is asleep in his ’dobe, so there’s no kick about the price. You swim ’em across the Rio Grande and sell ’em to the Americano waitin’ on the other side.”
    “You buy de wet horse?”
    “No, by Gawd,—I wet ’em!”
    “Why you steal?”
    He looked at her contemptuously.
    “Why does anybody steal? I need the dinero—me, Smith.”
    “You want money?”
    He laughed.
    “I always want money. I never had enough but once in my life, and then I had too much. Gold is hell to pack,” he added reminiscently.
    “I have de fine hay-ranch, white man, de best on de reservation. Two, four t’ousand dollars I have when de hay is sold. De ranch is big”—her arms swept the horizon to show its extent. “You stay here and make de bargain with de cattlemen, and I give you so much”—she measured a third of her hand with her forefinger. “If dat is not enough, I give you so much”—she measured the half of her hand with her forefinger. “If dat not enough, I give you all.” She swept the palm of one hand with the other.
    Smith dropped his eyelids, that she might not see the triumph shining beneath them.
    “I must think, Prairie Flower.”
    “No, white man, you no think. You stay!”
    Smith, who had arisen, slipped his arm about her ample waist. She pulled aside his Mackinaw coat and laid her head upon his breast.
    “The white man’s heart is strong,” she said softly.
    “It beats for you, Little Fawn;” and he ran out his tongue in derision.
    All the morning she sat on the floor at his feet, braiding the rags for her mat, content to hear him speak occasionally, and to look often into his face with dog-like devotion. It was there Susie saw her when she returned from school earlier in the afternoon than usual, and was beckoned into the kitchen by Ling.
    “He’s makin’ a mash,” said Ling laconically, as he jerked his thumb toward the open door of the living-room.
    All the girlish vivacity seemed to go out of Susie’s face in her first swift glance. It hardened in mingled shame and anger.
    “Mother,” she said sharply, “you promised me that you wouldn’t sit on the floor like an