Six Feet Four | Page 5

reproachfully trailed off to Poke Drury. The
one-legged man made a grimace and shrugged.
"I can't drag Lew's folks out, can I?" he demanded. "An' I'd like to see
the jasper as would try pryin' Ma loose from the covers right now. It
can't be did, Hap."
Hap sighed, seeming to agree, and sighing reached out a big hairy hand
for the bottle.
"She's an awful nice girl, jus' the same," he repeated with head-nodding
emphasis. And then, feeling no doubt that he had done his chivalrous
duty, he tossed off his liquor, stretched his thick arms high over his
head, squared his shoulders comfortably in his blue flannel shirt and
grinned in wide good humour. "This here campoody of yours ain't a

terrible bad place to be right bow, Poke, old scout. Not a bad place
a-tall."
"You said twice, she was nice," put in old man Adams, his bleary, red
rimmed ferret eyes gimleting at the stage driver. "But you ain't said
who she was? Now..."
Hap Smith stared at him and chuckled.
"Ain't that jus' like Adams for you?" he wanted to know. "Who is she,
he says! An' here I been ridin' alongside her all day an' never once does
it pop into my head to ask whether she minds the name of Daisy or
Sweet Marie!"
"Name's Winifred Waverly," chirped up the old man. "But a name don't
mean much; not in this end of the world least ways. But us boys finds it
kind of interestin' how she hangs out to Dead Man's Alley. That bein'
kind of strange an' ..."
"Poh!" snorted Hap Smith disdainfully. "Her hang out in that little town
of Hill's Corners? Seein' as she ain't ever been there, havin' tol' me so
on the stage less'n two hours ago, what's the sense of sayin' a fool thing
like that? She ain't the kind as dwells in the likes of that nest of polecats
an' sidewinders. Poh!"
"Poh, is it?" jeered old man Adams tremulously. "Clap your peep sight
on that, Hap Smith. Poh at me, will you?" and close up to the driver's
eyes he thrust the road house register with its newly pencilled
inscription so close that Hap Smith dodged and was some time
deciphering the brief legend.
"Beats me," he grunted, when he had done. He tossed the book to a
table as a matter of no moment and shrugged. "Anyways she's a nice
girl, I don't care where she abides, so to speak. An' me an' these other
boys," with a sweeping glance at the four of his recent male passengers,
"is hungrier than wolves. How about it, Poke? Late hours, but
considerin' the kind of night the devil's dealin' we're lucky to be here
a-tall. I could eat the hind leg off a ten year ol' steer."

"Jus' because a girl's got a red mouth an' purty eyes ..." began old man
Adams knowingly. But Smith snorted "Poh!" at him again and clapped
him good naturedly on the thin old shoulders after such a fashion as to
double the old man up and send him coughing and catching at his
breath back to his chair by the fire.
Poke Drury, staring strangely at Smith, showed unmistakable signs of
his embarrassment. Slowly under several pairs of interested eyes his
face went a flaming red.
"I don't know what's got into me tonight," he muttered, slapping a very
high and shining forehead with a very soft, flabby hand. "I clean forgot
you boys hadn't had supper. An' now ... the grub's all in the kitchen
an' ... _she's_ in there, all curled up in a quilt an' mos' likely asleep."
Several mouths dropped. As for Hap Smith he again smote his big
hands together and laughed.
"Drinks on Poke Drury," he announced cheerfully. "For havin' got so
excited over a pretty girl he forgot we hadn't had supper! Bein' that's
what's got into him."
Drury hastily set forth bottles and glasses. More than that, being tactful,
he started Hap Smith talking. He asked of the roads, called attention to
the fact that the stage was several hours late, hinted at danger from the
same gentleman who had taken off Bill Varney only recently, and so
succeeded in attaining the desired result. Hap Smith, a glass twisting
slowly in his hand, declaimed long and loudly.
But in the midst of his dissertation the kitchen door opened and the girl,
her quilt about her shoulders like a shawl, came in.
"I heard," she said quietly. "You are all hungry and the food is in
there." She came on to the fireplace and sat down. "I am hungry, too.
And cold." She looked upon the broad genial face of Hap Smith as
upon the visage of an old friend. "I am not