SO BILL GOES BACK

Parowan sprawled over the slope of the mountain without much regularity in her streets and with no dignity whatever. Bill had read faithfully each copy of the Parowan Record as soon as he received it, and he had calmly believed that he was keeping in close touch with the town. For instance, he had studied the picture of the new, two-story concrete schoolhouse with its graded yard and young shade trees and the cement walks and all. He had told Doris proudly that the building would reflect credit on any California town,—which was true, so far as the picture went.

Just at first he did not recognize the schoolhouse as he came up the street from the pagoda-roofed, cement depot with its arches that purported to be Moorish or Mission, no one seemed to know which. The depot had looked cunning in the picture, Doris had thought, and Bill had enthusiastically agreed with her. It did not look so cunning in reality; merely pretentious in a cheap way that irritated him. When he failed to recognize the schoolhouse, a cracker-box edifice of ugly cement blocks surrounded by raw, unpainted shacks, Bill was shocked. He had mistaken it for the jail until he observed the absence of bars at the windows, and the trampled ground in front.

He strode up the board walk—hastily laid, of cheap lumber and already showing wide cracks and broken sections where knot holes had weakened the wood and much trampling had done the rest. The Parowan Security and Trust Savings Bank stared at him from the next corner. This building he recognized the moment he saw it, and with reason. Parowan Consolidated occupied the entire front of the second story, and the building was printed in miniature upon the Company's letterheads, with the sign showing distinctly across the upper windows.

Across from the bank, the O'Hara House floated a green pennant with the O'Hara in white upon it; which was the sign of the O'Hara House in cities all through the West. Bill and Doris had tried one in Portland, and had found it almost good enough for Doris, although "two-rooms-and-bath" were the best accommodations the place afforded, with the bath connecting, which was terrible. But the cuisine was above criticism. O'Hara food always was perfect and immaculately served. Nevertheless, Bill curled his lips at the sign and went into a grocery store and bought a can of tomatoes, a pound of coffee, a little flour and butter and onions and potatoes and such other supplies as he happened to see or remember, and called a loafing Mexican to carry the stuff to his old camp, Bill walking ahead with his suitcase to show the way.

Tommy, it appeared, had been faithful to his trust. The camp was enclosed by a highboard fence, and there were signs which said, "KEEP OUT!! THIS MEANS YOU!!" Bill grinned happily and had the Mexican set the things down by the gate and go back whence he had come, an extra dollar in his overalls pocket and a wide smile on his face.

Tommy had sent the extra padlock key to Bill, perhaps in proof of his good faith. Bill opened the gate and was set upon with deadly intent by Hezekiah, who evidently failed to remember him until Bill spoke his name. Then his joy became hysterical and brought a lump into Bill's throat.

His tent stood just as he had left it, with the forge under the juniper tree and the dugout cellar in the bank. His bunk was neatly spread with his blankets, though dust lay on the calico-covered pillow. His dishes were placed in orderly rows upon the box shelves, a pile of dry wood lay behind the cook stove. And from the ridgepole, suspended by a bit of rope tied through the handle, hung a black leather case,—the silver saxophone.

Bill laughed a little when he glanced up and saw the symbol of one secret hope, but there was no mirth in the laughter. He was thinking what a fool he had been to dream of playing "Love's Old, Sweet Song" with Doris. Doris never sang nowadays. She would not sing the old songs Bill loved, because they were so absolutely back-woodsy and she did not seem to care about learning the new ones. Besides, she explained, her voice had never been cultivated; an omission for which Bill thanked God in his heart, after hearing other women strain their vocal chords with technical skill and little melody. Doris did not even know about the saxophone. It seemed unlikely now that she ever would know.

Bill started a fire, laid his coat across the pillow, removed his cuffs and his collar and began to peel the potatoes. He missed Luella, but he knew that she was down in Tommy's Place, in the back room where her speech would not be too corrupted, and he did not want to meet any one until he had eaten and smoked and planned exactly what he would do. Until he was actually on the ground he could not choose a site for the home he meant to build,—a home worthy his little Mary.

Doris had not seemed to mind his coming, and she had made no open objection to his errand. She had adopted a neutral attitude, a slightly tolerant manner toward Bill and his plan. If he wanted to build a house for the baby, years before the baby would be able to appreciate the gift, that was his own affair. She supposed he realized that the house would be all out of date long before Mary was big enough to live in it,—and did he actually mean to furnish the thing?

"It's going to be ready to step into and hang up your hat and the baby's bonnet, before I leave it," Bill had assured her steadfastly. "Whether you ever see the inside of it or not makes no difference. That will be up to you, honey. But I'm going to do my part. I'll make the home."

Well, he was here for that purpose. He had the plans in his suitcase, and the builders had ordered the material and shipped two carloads. He was to choose the site and wire whether Parowan could furnish cement workers competent to lay the foundation. He had left only one thing undone: he had not told any one in Parowan that he was coming. Wherefore, he was surprised to hear the gate open and shut, and to see Tommy presently thrust his spectacled face belligerently into the tent opening.

"An' it's yerself, is ut, Mr. Dale?" Tommy stood within the tent, goggling at Bill, his leathery face relaxing into a wide grin. "I was toold uh somewan makin' hisself free wit' this place, an' I left Dugan in charrge of the s'loon an' come along over t' have it out wit' the boorglar. I did that!"

For the first time in months, the old, sunny twinkle was back in Bill's eyes. He would not have believed that he would ever be so glad to see Tommy.

"You go back and get Luella, darn yuh," he commanded, trying to be harsh about it. "And don't let on I'm back, will you, Tommy? I want to surprise the boys. If you haven't eaten, we'll have a real feed. Good old onions and spuds fried in bacon grease!"

"I've been stoppin' at the O'Hara House, Mr. Dale," said Tommy stiffly. "They set a foine table—they do, that! Pie an' ice cream bot' at the same meal, Mr. Dale, an' no extry charrge fer that same. I been settin' the buttons forrard on my vest since I been boardin' wit' O'Hara, an' it's the trut' I'm tellin' yuh now." He took a step toward the doorway and stopped, loath to go.

"An' if it's the gin'ral manager uh Parowan yuh mean t' supprise, Mr. Dale, yuh'll do that same or I mistake. I ast 'im yisterday was yuh ever comin' back t' take holt, an' he says you was too busy makin' the money fly. An' I says to him, I says, 'It's to Parowan he sh'd come fer that,' I says, 'fer I never in all my born days seen the like.'"

Bill rescued the coffee from boiling over.

"Thought I was going broke or something, did he?"

"I dunno as to that, Mr. Dale. But he says you bin makin' it fly, an' c'llectin' yoor share fast as it comes in, he says. I take it he meant you been cuttin' a wide swathe, Mr. Dale—which nobody's got a better right, that I know. The best has been none too good, he says to me, an' named over the hotels yuh been boarding at. An' phwat business it was uh hisn I dunno, fer it's yer own money yuh been spendin'. An' I toold him that same, I did."

"I'm going to spend some more too," Bill declared, and smiled queerly to himself.

"Yuh'll never spend more than yuh've got, Mr. Dale—well I know that," drawled Tommy. "My last dime'd back that statement. It would that. An' it'd be well if I could put my good money on some others—which I would not." With that somewhat cryptic observation, Tommy withdrew to bring the parrot.

Bill sat himself down to what he considered the most satisfying meal he had eaten in many a day. He was not a primitive soul, fit only to enjoy the cruder things of life; but there was something within him that rebelled against smiles and handshakes where no good will begot them, and at the servility of hotel servants hoping for tips, and the insipid, painted faces of women who bared their shoulders and whispered malicious gossip behind jeweled hands. He could remember some wonderful evenings filled with music or the genius of great actors picturing life before him on the stage; and he could also remember evenings when he had been too bored and resentful to see the humor that lay beneath the surface of the peacock parade. And more than anything else, Doris had made mealtime an occasion for studied display that should seem unconscious. He had come to dread dinner especially.

Wherefore he enjoyed his onions and potatoes, his stewed tomatoes and fried corn all the more because he knew how certain eyebrows would lift in astonishment could their owners look in upon the wealthy William Gordon Dale, and see how he was enjoying his plebeian fare.

"Doris would like a taste of this grub," he told himself gayly as he filled his plate the second time. "She's hypnotized now with the novelty of it—dazzled with the glamor. But it's no natural life for anybody that has lived the real thing; seen life stripped down to reality. It's all pretense—and Doris is more than half pretending, herself. Pretending she likes that sort of thing—when she's probably half homesick, right now, for the desert, and won't admit it.

"Wait till she sees the house I'll build for her! No great barn of a place that she couldn't use, out here—but a jewel of a home. Everything she likes that will fit in here. I know! I've watched her eyes when we struck some new place. Big, rock fireplace—Parowan rock; beamed ceilings, broad stairway, hardwood floors—great, long stretches of space with arches—and a big window framing the desert like a picture. What she calls a vista. I know—you bet I know! She thinks I'm going to build some darned box of a place, perhaps of cement. I let her think so. It'll be all rock, and glass, and hardwoods that will last a century and longer.

"I'll find a hillside where the town won't be right under her nose, and I'll frame a vista for her with every window in the house! She can have house parties, if she wants to—lots of those city folks would be crazy to come and spend a week or two over here. In fact, they've thrown out hints about it, some of them—only Doris wouldn't take it that way.

"Things'll grow, here," he went on, thinking and planning more hopefully than he had done for months. "I'll have grounds laid out, and things planted that will make our home a garden spot. It may cost something, but——" He grinned then, and offered Hez a bacon rind and held his chops for a minute so that he could gaze deep into his eyes.

"Hez, you old devil, I believe you're kind of glad I came home," he said, and lingered wistfully on the last word. "You can be bodyguard for little Mary, when she gets to toddling around. I'll have to put a fence around the place to keep her in, I expect. You'd take care of the snakes and scorpions and such, wouldn't you, old boy? Never saw a bug get away from you yet."

Tommy came, with Luella riding solemnly on his shoulder. Bill rose to greet her, having been schooled in his deportment toward ladies. Luella craned her neck and eyed him suspiciously while he coaxed her, then remembered and stepped gravely upon his inviting forefinger.

"I'll be damned," she observed, looking at him with her head tilted. "Look who's here! When did you get in?"

"You can't tell me this bird ain't human," Bill exclaimed much impressed by the remark.

"She's heard that talk in the s'loon," Tommy discounted her intelligence. "If she don't speak worse things I'll be contint. Your turkle's gone, Mr. Dale. I'm thinkin' she's wandered away, an' I've a reward out fer her—if it's a her, which I dunno—an' I'm hopin' she'll be returned to yuh. It's a week ago she disappeared—she did that."

"Holed up for the winter, maybe. They do, you know."

"That's a hell of a note!" cried Luella sharply.

"Well, I must be gittin' back, Mr. Dale. An' when it pleases yuh, maybe yuh'll step into my place an' have a bit of a drink on the house. An' I'll be proud to see yuh enter the door—I will that."

"First place I hit, Tommy, will be yours. And mind you, I want to surprise the boys."

"It's the town itself'll be glad to see yer face, Mr. Dale," Tommy muttered and went off, wagging his head.

Bill was trying to persuade Luella to kiss him, and did not hear.