Claire had often given lifts to tramping harvesters and even hoboes
along the road; had enjoyed the sight of their duffle-bags stuck up
between the sleek fenders and the hood, and their talk about people and
crops along the road, as they hung on the running-board. In the country
of long hillslopes and sentinel buttes between the Dakota Bad Lands and
Miles City she stopped to shout to a man whose plodding heavy back
looked fagged, "Want a ride?"
"Sure! You bet!"
Usually her guests stepped on the right-hand running-board, beside Mr.
Boltwood, and this man was far over on the right side of the road. But,
while she waited, he sauntered in front of the car, round to her side,
mounted beside her. Before the car had started, she was sorry to have
invited him. He looked her over grinningly, almost contemptuously. His
unabashed eyes were as bright and hard as agates. Below them, his nose
was twisted a little, his mouth bent insolently up at one corner, and
his square long chin bristled.
Usually, too, her passengers waited for her to start the conversation,
and talked at Mr. Boltwood rather than directly to her. But the bristly
man spat at her as the car started, "Going far?"
"Ye-es, some distance."
"Expensive car?"
"Why----"
"'Fraid of getting held up?"
"I hadn't thought about it."
"Pack a cannon, don't you?"
"I don't think I quite understand."
"Cannon! Gun! Revolver! Got a revolver, of course?"
"W-why, no." She spoke uncomfortably. She was aware that his twinkling
eyes were on her throat. His look made her feel unclean. She tried to
think of some question which would lead the conversation to the less
exclamatory subject of crops. They were on a curving shelf road beside a
shallow valley. The road was one side of a horseshoe ten miles long. The
unprotected edge of it dropped sharply to fields forty or fifty feet
below.
"Prosperous-looking wheat down there," she said.
"No. Not a bit!" His look seemed to add, "And you know it--unless you're
a fool!"
"Well, I didn't----"
"Make Glendive tonight?"
"At least that far."
"Say, lady, how's the chance for borrowin' a couple of dollars? I was
workin' for a Finnski back here a ways, and he did me dirt--holdin' out
my wages on me till the end of the month."
"Why, uh----"
It was Claire, not the man, who was embarrassed.
He was snickering, "Come on, don't be a tightwad. Swell car--poor man
with no eats, not even a two-bits flop for tonight. Could yuh loosen up
and slip me just a couple bones?"
Mr. Boltwood intervened. He looked as uncomfortable as Claire. "We'll
see. It's rather against my principles to give money to an able-bodied
man like you, even though it is a pleasure to give you a ride----"