A Girl of the Plains Country

								

see from the tail of his eye that she hung just outside the door.
“But, Pearsall,” Van Brunt, helpless city man, repeated in a sort of
blank dismay, “you don’t mean to say you’re leaving me—right
now—when I need you worst? Why, what on earth will I do?”
“You know,” said Hank mildly. “I explained it to you last week, Mr.
Van Brunt. When the ranch was sold, back three months ago, I looked
out for another job. I got one, with the Quita Que, over in New
Mexico, and they put me on forfeit—”
“No business man,” broke in Van Brunt. “I suppose I didn’t
understand. The fault is mine, Pearsall. But this—I—I’m about as
competent to run a ranch as Burch would be. I somehow took it for
granted that you were to be manager. Can’t we—I will gladly pay that
forfeit, if you are willing to stay—long enough at least to get me
started.”
Hank raised a warning hand as Hilda’s face again showed at the door.
The child did not edge in, as she had edged before! She made
straight for Pearsall—though she winced at her father’s impatient
exclamation—climbed to the old man’s lap, and looked searchingly
into his face.
“Uncle Hank—you—going away?” She choked on the last word, then added
half desperately, “Not—to stay? You’ll come back—won’t you?”
Van Brunt’s strained attitude relaxed a little; he sat back vaguely
in his chair, glancing from one to the other, the dismay in his face
gradually giving way to a half doubtful gleam of hope. Hank was
silent a moment, Hilda watching him, openly restraining tears. The
manager had seen more than one Easterner launch himself and
everything he possessed in this cattle ranching game, and, ill
prepared, inexperienced, lose all. Before him was another candidate
for just such another calamitous failure. But it was the warm little
body trembling on his lap, the big dark eyes searching his, that he
was most conscious of.
“That’s all right, Pettie—about me going away,” he began hesitantly.
Then with more certainty, and setting her gently down, “You run
along to bed, honey.”
She moved a little, with childhood’s tragic reluctance, in the
direction of the door, then turned with just a mute look into his
face. Hank gave her a reassuring smile.
“Time them big black peepers was shut, Pettie,” he said easily. “And
it’s all right. If I do have to go away, I’ll come straight back.
Don’t you worry. I’m not goin’ to quit the Sorrers. Reckon I’ll stay
as long as you do.”
“Then—” began Hilda. But her throat swelled so that she couldn’t
finish it. It was going to be, “Then, if you will never forsake me,
I will never forsake you,”—a line from one of her best loved fairy
stories—all of that, even here before papa. But the best she could
do was, “Then—I’ll go—Uncle Hank.” And she crept out.
When they heard her feet pattering on the stairs, Van Brunt began to
speak, but Hank stopped him with a shake of the head.