"That's The Old Chisholm Trail he's whistling," Billy Louise observed under her breath, smiling reminiscently. "The very song I used to pretend he always sang when he came down the canyon to rescue Minervy and me! But of course--I knew all the time he's a cowboy; it said so--"
The whistling broke and he began to sing at the top of a clear, strong-lunged voice, that old, old trail song beloved of punchers the West over: "Oh, it's cloudy in the West and a-lookin' like rain, And my damned old slicker's in the wagon again, Coma ti yi youpy, youpy-a, youpy-a, Coma ti yi youpy, youpy-a!"
"What did you say, Billy Louise? I'm sure it's a comfort to have him here, and you see he was glad and willing--"
But Billy Louise was holding the door open half an inch, listening and slipping back into the child-world wherein Ward Warren came singing down the canyon to rescue her and Minervy. The words came gustily from the creek down the slope: "No chaps, no slicker, and a-pourin' down rain, And I swear by the Lord I'll never night-herd again, Coma ti yi youpy, youpy-a, youpy-a, Coma ti yi youpy, youpy-a!
"Feet in the stirrups and seat in the saddle, I hung and rattled with them long-horn cattle, Coma ti yi--"
"Do shut the door, Billy Louise! What you want to stand there like that for? And the wind freezing everything inside! I can feel a terrible draught on my feet and ankles, and you know what that leads to."
So Billy Louise closed the door and laid another alder root on the coals in the fireplace, the while her mind was given over to dreamy speculations, and the words of that old trail song ran on in her memory though she could no longer hear him singing. Her mother talked on about Peter and the storm and this man who had ridden straight from the land of daydreams to her door, but the girl was not listening.
"Now ain't you relieved, yourself, that he's going to stay?"
Billy Louise, kneeling on the hearth and staring abstractedly into the fire, came back with a jerk to reality. The little smile that had been in her eyes and on her lips fled back with the dreams that had brought it. She gave her shoulders an impatient twitch and got up.
"Oh--I guess he'll be more agreeable to have around than Peter," she admitted taciturnly; which was as close to her real opinion of the man as a mere mother might hope to come.