“Well, are we all ready?” Dick gathered up his reins, and took critical inventory of the load. His mother peered under the front seat to be doubly sure that there were at least four umbrellas and her waterproof raglan in the rig; Mrs. Lansell did not propose to be caught unawares in a storm another time. Miss Hayes straightened Dorman's cap, and told him to sit down, dear, and then called upon Sir Redmond to enforce the command. Sir Redmond repeated her command, minus the dear, and then rode on ahead to overtake Beatrice and Keith, who had started. Dick climbed up over the front wheel, released the brake, chirped at the horses, and they were off for Lost Canyon.
Beatrice was behaving beautifully, and her mother only hoped to heaven it would last the day out; perhaps Sir Redmond would be able to extract some sort of a promise from her in that mood, Mrs. Lansell reflected, as she watched Beatrice chatting to her two cavaliers, with the most decorous impartiality. Sir Redmond seemed in high spirits, which argued well; Mrs. Lansell gave herself up to the pleasure of the drive with a heart free from anxiety. Not only was Beatrice at her best; Dorman's mood was nothing short of angelic, and as the weather was simply perfect, the day surely promised well.
For a mile Keith had showed signs of a mind not at ease, and at last he made bold to speak.
“I thought Rex was to be your saddle-horse?” he said abruptly to Beatrice.
“He was; but when Dick brought Goldie home, last night, I fell in love with him on sight, and just teased Dick till he told me I might have him to ride.”
“I thought Dick had some sense,” Keith said gloomily.
“He has. He knew there would be no peace till he surrendered.”
“I didn't know you were going to ride him, when I sold him to Dick. He's not safe for a woman.”
“Does he buck, Mr. Cameron? Dick said he was gentle.” Beatrice had seen a horse buck, one day, and had a wholesome fear of that form of equine amusement.
“Oh, no. I never knew him to.”
“Then I don't mind anything else. I'm accustomed to horses,” said Beatrice, and smiled welcome to Sir Redmond, who came up with them at that moment.
“You want to ride him with a light rein,” Keith cautioned, clinging to the subject. “He's tenderbitted, and nervous. He won't stand for any jerking, you see.”
“I never jerk, Mr. Cameron.” Keith discovered that big, baffling, blue-brown eyes can, if they wish, rival liquid air for coldness. “I rode horses before I came to Montana.”
Of course, when a man gets frozen with a girl's eyes, and scorched with a girl's sarcasm, the thing for him to do is to retreat until the atmosphere becomes normal. Keith fell behind just as soon as he could do so with some show of dignity, and for several miles tried to convince himself that he would rather talk to Dick and “the old maid” than not.
“Don't you know,” Sir Redmond remarked sympathetically, “some of these Western fellows are inclined to be deuced officious and impertinent.”
Sir Redmond got a taste of the freezing process that made him change the subject abruptly.
The way was rough and lonely; the trail wound over sharp-nosed hills and through deep, narrow coulees, with occasional, tantalizing glimpses of the river and the open land beyond, that kept Beatrice in a fever of enthusiasm. From riding blithely ahead, she took to lagging far behind with her kodak, getting snap-shots of the choicest bits of scenery.
“Another cartridge, please, Sir Redmond,” she said, and wound industriously on the finished roll.
“It's a jolly good thing I brought my pockets full.” Sir Redmond fished one out for her. “Was that a dozen?”
“No; that had only six films. I want a larger one this time. It is a perfect nuisance to stop and change. Be still, Goldie!”
“We're getting rather a long way behind—but I fancy the road is plain.”
“We'll hurry and overtake them. I won't take any more pictures.”
“Until you chance upon something you can't resist. I understand all that, you know.” Sir Redmond, while he teased, was pondering whether this was an auspicious time and place to ask Beatrice to marry him. He had tried so many times and places that seemed auspicious, that the man was growing fearful. It is not pleasant to have a girl smile indulgently upon you and deftly turn your avowals aside, so that they fall flat.
“I'm ready,” she announced, blind to what his eyes were saying.
“Shall we trek?” Sir Redmond sighed a bit. He was not anxious to overtake the others.
“We will. Only, out here people never 'trek,' Sir Redmond. They 'hit the trail'.”
“So they do. And the way these cowboys do it, one would think they were couriers, by Jove! with the lives of a whole army at stake. So I fancy we had better hit the trail, eh?”
“You're learning,” Beatrice assured him, as they started on. “A year out here, and you would be a real American, Sir Redmond.”
Sir Redmond came near saying, “The Lord forbid!” but he thought better of it. Beatrice was intensely loyal to her countrymen, unfortunately, and would certainly resent such a remark; but, for all that, he thought it.
For a mile or two she held to her resolve, and then, at the top of a long hill overlooking the canyon where they were to eat their lunch, out came her kodak again.
“This must be Lost Canyon, for Dick has stopped by those trees. I want to get just one view from here. Steady, Goldie! Dear me, this horse does detest standing still!”
“I fancy he is anxious to get down with the others. Let me hold him for you. Whoa, there!” He put a hand upon the bridle, a familiarity Goldie resented. He snorted and dodged backward, to the ruin of the picture Beatrice was endeavoring to get.
“Now you've frightened him. Whoa, pet! It's of no use to try; he won't stand.”
“Let me have your camera. He's getting rather an ugly temper, I think.” Sir Redmond put out his hand again, and again Goldie dodged backward.
“I can do better alone, Sir Redmond.” The cheeks of Beatrice were red. She managed to hold the horse in until her kodak was put safely in its case, but her temper, as well as Goldie's, was roughened. She hated spoiling a film, which she was perfectly sure she had done.
Goldie felt the sting of her whip when she brought him back into the road, and, from merely fretting, he took to plunging angrily. Then, when Beatrice pulled him up sharply, he thrust out his nose, grabbed the bit in his teeth, and bolted down the hill, past all control.
“Good God, hold him!” shouted Sir Redmond, putting his horse to a run.
The advice was good, and Beatrice heard it plainly enough, but she neither answered nor looked back. How, she thought, resentfully, was one to hold a yellow streak of rage, with legs like wire springs and a neck of iron? Besides, she was angrily alive to the fact that Keith Cameron, watching down below, was having his revenge. She wondered if he was enjoying it.
He was not. Goldie, when he ran, ran blindly in a straight line, and Keith knew it. He also knew that the Englishman couldn't keep within gunshot of Goldie, with the mount he had, and half a mile away—Keith shut his teeth hard together, and went out to meet her. Redcloud lay along the ground in great leaps, but Keith, bending low over his neck, urged him faster and faster, until the horse, his ears laid close against his neck, did the best there was in him. From the tail of his eye, Keith saw Sir Redmond's horse go down upon his knees, and get up limping—and the sight filled him with ungenerous gladness; Sir Redmond was out of the race. It was Keith and Redcloud—they two; and Keith could smile over it.
He saw Beatrice's hat loosen and lift in front, flop uncertainly, and then go sailing away into the sage-brush, and he noted where it fell, that he might find it, later. Then he was close enough to see her face, and wondered that there was so little fear written there. Beatrice was plucky, and she rode well, her weight upon the bit; but her weight was nothing to the clinched teeth of the horse; and, though she had known it from the start, she was scarcely frightened. There was a good deal of the daredevil in Beatrice; she trusted a great deal to blind luck.
Just there the land was level, and she hoped to check him on the slope of the hill before them. She did not know it was moated like a castle, with a washout ten feet deep and twice that in width, and that what looked to her quite easy was utterly impossible.
Keith gained, every leap. In a moment he was close behind.
“Take your foot out of the stirrup,” he commanded, harshly, and though Beatrice wondered why, something in his voice made her obey.
Now Redcloud's nose was even with her elbow; the breath from his wide-flaring nostrils rose hotly in her face. Another bound, and he had forged ahead, neck and neck with Goldie, and it was Keith by her side, keen-eyed and calm.
“Let go all hold,” he said. Reaching suddenly, he caught her around the waist and pulled her from the saddle, just as Redcloud, scenting danger, plowed his front feet deeply into the loose soil and stopped dead still.
It was neatly done, and quickly; so quickly that before Beatrice had more than gasped her surprise, Keith lowered her to the ground and slid out of the saddle. Beatrice looked at him, and wondered at his face, and at the way he was shaking. He leaned weakly against the horse and hid his face on his arm, and trembled at what had come so close to the girl—the girl, who stood there panting a little, with her wonderful, waving hair cloaking her almost to her knees, and her blue-brown eyes wide and bright, and full of a deep amazement. She forgot Goldie, and did not even look to see what had become of him; she forgot nearly everything, just then, in wonder at this tall, clean-built young fellow, who never had seemed to care what happened, leaning there with his face hidden, his hat far hack on his head and little drops standing thickly upon his forehead. She waited a moment, and when he did not move, her thoughts drifted to other things.
“I wonder,” she said abstractedly, “if I broke my kodak.”
Keith lifted his head and looked at her. “Your kodak—good Lord!” He looked hard into her eyes, and she returned the stare.
“Come here,” he commanded, hoarsely, catching her arm. “Your kodak! Look down there!” He led her to the brink, which was close enough to set him shuddering anew. “Look! There's Goldie, damn him! It's a wonder he's on his feet; I thought he'd be dead—and serve him right. And you—you wonder if you broke your kodak!”
Beatrice drew back from him, and from the sight below, and if she were frightened, she tried not to let him see. “Should I have fainted?” She was proud of the steadiness of her voice. “Really, I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Cameron, for saving me from an ugly fall. You did it very neatly, I imagine, and I am grateful. Still, I really hope I didn't break my kodak. Are you very disappointed because I can't faint away? There doesn't seem to be any brook close by, you see—and I haven't my er—lover's arms to fall into. Those are the regulation stage settings, I believe, and—”
“Don't worry, Miss Lansell. I didn't expect you to faint, or to show any human feelings whatever. I do pity your horse, though.”
“You didn't a minute ago,” she reminded him. “You indulged in a bit of profanity, if I remember.”
“For which I beg Goldie's pardon,” he retorted, his eyes unsmiling.
“And mine, I hope.”
“Certainly.”
“I think it's rather absurd to stand here sparring, Mr. Cameron. You'll begin to accuse me of ingratitude, and I'm as grateful as possible for what you did. Sir Redmond's horse was too slow to keep up, or he would have been at hand, no doubt.”
“And could have supplied part of the stage setting. Too bad he was behind.” Keith turned and readjusted the cinch on his saddle, though it was not loose enough to matter, and before he had finished Sir Redmond rode up.
“Are you hurt, Beatrice?” His face was pale, and his eyes anxious.
“Not at all. Mr. Cameron kindly helped me from the saddle in time to prevent an accident. I wish you'd thank him, Sir Redmond. I haven't the words.”
“You needn't trouble,” said Keith hastily, getting into the saddle. “I'll go down after Goldie. You can easily find the camp, I guess, without a pilot.” Then he galloped away and left them, and would not look back; if he had done so, he would have seen Beatrice's eyes following him remorsefully. Also, he would have seen Sir Redmond glare after him jealously; for Sir Redmond was not in a position to know that their tete-a-tete had not been a pleasant one, and no man likes to have another fellow save the life of a woman he loves, while he himself is limping painfully up from the rear.
However, the woman he loved was very gracious to him that day, and for many days, and Keith Cameron held himself aloof during the rest of the trip, which should have contented Sir Redmond.
Dorman toiled up the steps, his straw hat perilously near to slipping down his back, his face like a large, red beet, and his hands vainly trying to reach around a baking-powder can which the Chinaman cook had given him.
He marched straight to where Beatrice was lying in the hammock. If she had been older, or younger, or a plain young woman, one might say that Beatrice was sulking in the hammock, for she had not spoken anything but “yes” and “no” to her mother for an hour, and she had only spoken those two words occasionally, when duty demanded it. For one thing, Sir Redmond was absent, and had been for two weeks, and Beatrice was beginning to miss him dreadfully. To beguile the time, she had ridden, every day, long miles into the hills. Three times she had met Keith Cameron, also riding alone in the hills, and she had endeavored to amuse herself with him, after her own inimitable fashion, and with more or less success. The trouble was, that sometimes Keith seemed to be amusing himself with her, which was not pleasing to a girl like Beatrice. At any rate, he proved himself quite able to play the game of Give and Take, so that the conscience of Beatrice was at ease; no one could call her pastime a slaughter of the innocents, surely, when the fellow stood his ground like that. It was more a fencing-bout, and Beatrice enjoyed it very much; she told herself that the reason she enjoyed talking with Keith was because he was not always getting hurt, like Sir Redmond—or, if he did, he kept his feelings to himself, and went boldly on with the game. Item: Beatrice had reversed her decision that Keith was vain, though she still felt tempted, at times, to resort to “making faces”—when she was worsted, that was.
To return to this particular day of sulking; Rex had cast a shoe, and lamed himself just enough to prevent her riding, and so Beatrice was having a dull day of it in the house. Besides, her mother had just finished talking to her for her good, which was enough to send an angel into the sulks—and Beatrice lacked a good deal of being an angel.
Dorman laid his baking-powder can confidingly in his divinity's lap. “Be'trice, I did get some grasshoppers; you said I couldn't. And you wouldn't go fishin', 'cause you didn't like to take Uncle Dick's make-m'lieve flies, so I got some really ones, Be'trice, that'll wiggle dere own self.”
“Oh, dear me! It's too hot, Dorman.”
“'Tisn't, Be'trice It's dest as cool—and by de brook it's awf-lly cold. Come, Be'trice!” He pulled at the smart little pink ruffles on her skirt.
“I'm too sleepy, hon.”
“You can sleep by de brook, Be'trice. I'll let you,” he promised generously, “'cept when I need anudder grasshopper; nen I'll wake you up.”
“Wait till to-morrow. I don't believe the fish are hungry to-day. Don't tear my skirt to pieces, Dorman!”
Dorman began to whine. He had never found his divinity in so unlovely a mood. “I want to go now! Dey are too hungry, Be'trice! Looey Sam is goin' to fry my fishes for dinner, to s'prise auntie. Come, Be'trice!”
“Why don't you go with the child, Beatrice? You grow more selfish every day.” Mrs. Lansell could not endure selfishness—in others. “You know he will not give us any peace until you do.”
Dorman instantly proceeded to make good his grandmother's prophecy, and wept so that one could hear him a mile.
“Oh, dear me! Be still, Dorman—your auntie has a headache. Well, get your rod, if you know where it is—which I doubt.” Beatrice flounced out of the hammock and got her hat, one of those floppy white things, fluffed with thin, white stuff, till they look like nothing so much as a wisp of cloud, with ribbons to moor it to her head and keep it from sailing off to join its brothers in the sky.
Down by the creek, where the willows nodded to their own reflections in the still places, it was cool and sweet scented, and Beatrice forgot her grievances, and was not sorry she had come.
(It was at about this time that a tall young fellow, two miles down the coulee, put away his field glass and went off to saddle his horse.)
“Don't run ahead so, Dorman,” Beatrice cautioned. To her had been given the doubtful honor of carrying the baking-powder can of grasshoppers. Even divinities must make themselves useful to man.
“Why, Be'trice?” Dorman swished his rod in unpleasant proximity to his divinity's head.
“Because, honey”—Beatrice dodged—“you might step on a snake, a rattlesnake, that would bite you.”
“How would it bite, Be'trice?”
“With its teeth, of course; long, wicked teeth, with poison on them.”
“I saw one when I was ridin' on a horse wis Uncle Dick. It kept windin' up till it was round, and it growled wis its tail, Be'trice. And Uncle Dick chased it, and nen it unwinded itself and creeped under a big rock. It didn't bite once—and I didn't see any teeth to it.”
“Carry your rod still, Dorman. Are you trying to knock my hat off my head? Rattlesnakes have teeth, hon, whether you saw them or not. I saw a great, long one that day we thought you were lost. Mr. Cameron killed it with his rope. I'm sure it had teeth.”
“Did it growl, Be'trice? Tell me how it went.”
“Like this, hon.” Beatrice parted her lips ever so little, and a snake buzzed at Dorman's feet. He gave a yell of terror, and backed ingloriously.
“You see, honey, if that had been really a snake, it would have bitten you. Never mind, dear—it was only I.”
Dorman was some time believing this astonishing statement. “How did you growl by my feet, Be'trice? Show me again.”
Beatrice, who had learned some things at school which were not included in the curriculum, repeated the performance, while Dorman watched her with eyes and mouth at their widest. Like some older members of his sex, he was discovering new witcheries about his divinity every day.
“Well, Be'trice!” He gave a long gasp of ecstasy. “I don't see how can you do it? Can't I do it, Be'trice?”
“I'm afraid not, honey—you'd have to learn. There was a queer French girl at school, who could do the strangest things, Dorman—like fairy tales, almost. And she taught me to throw my voice different places, and mimic sounds, when we should have been at our lessons. Listen, hon. This is how a little lamb cries, when he is lost.... And this is what a hungry kittie says, when she is away up in a tree, and is afraid to come down.”
Dorman danced all around his divinity, and forgot about the fish—until Beatrice found it in her heart to regret her rash revelation of hitherto undreamed-of powers of entertainment.
“Not another sound, Dorman,” she declared at length, with the firmness of despair. “No, I will not be a lost lamb another once. No, nor a hungry kittie, either—nor a snake, or anything. If you are not going to fish, I shall go straight back to the house.”
Dorman sighed heavily, and permitted his divinity to fasten a small grasshopper to his hook.
“We'll go a bit farther, dear, down under those great trees. And you must not speak a word, remember, or the fish will all run away.”
When she had settled him in a likely place, and the rapt patience of the born angler had folded him close, she disposed herself comfortably in the thick grass, her back against a tree, and took up the shuttle of fancy to weave a wonderful daydream, as beautiful, intangible as the lacy, summer clouds over her head.
A man rode quietly over the grass and stopped two rods away, that he might fill his hungry eyes with the delicious loveliness of his Heart's Desire.
“Got a bite yet?”
Dorman turned and wrinkled his nose, by way of welcome, and shook his head vaguely, as though he might tell of several unimportant nibbles, if it were worth the effort.
Beatrice sat a bit straighter, and dexterously whisked some pink ruffles down over two distracting ankles, and hoped Keith had not taken notice of them. He had, though; trust a man for that!
Keith dismounted, dropped the reins to the ground, and came and laid himself down in the grass beside his Heart's Desire, and Beatrice noticed how tall he was, and slim and strong.
“How did you know we were here?” she wanted to know, with lifted eyebrows.
Keith wondered if there was a welcome behind that sweet, indifferent face. He never could be sure of anything in Beatrice's face, because it never was alike twice, it seemed to him—and if it spoke welcome for a second, the next there was only raillery, or something equally unsatisfying.
“I saw you from the trail,” he answered promptly, evidently not thinking it wise to mention the fieldglass. And then: “Is Dick at home?” Not that he wanted Dick—but a fellow, even when he is in the last stages of love, feels need of an excuse sometimes.
“No—we women are alone to-day. There isn't a man on the place, except Looey Sam, and he doesn't count.”
Dorman squirmed around till he could look at the two, and his eyebrows were tied in a knot. “I wish, Be'trice, you wouldn't talk, 'less you whisper. De fishes won't bite a bit.”
“All right, honey—we won't.”
Dorman turned back to his fishing with a long breath of relief. His divinity never broke a promise, if she could help it.
If Dorman Hayes had been Cupid himself, he could not have hit upon a more impish arrangement than that. To place a girl like Beatrice beside a fellow like Keith—a fellow who is tall, and browned, and extremely good-looking, and who has hazel eyes with a laugh in them always—a fellow, moreover, who is very much in love and very much in earnest about it—and condemn him to silence, or to whispers!
Keith took advantage of the edict, and moved closer, so that he could whisper in comfort—and be nearer his Heart's Desire. He lay with his head propped upon his hand, and his elbow digging into the sod and getting grass-stains on his shirt sleeve, for the day was too warm for a coat. Beatrice, looking down at him, observed that his forearm, between his glove and wrist-band, was as white and smooth as her own. It is characteristic of a cowboy to have a face brown as an Indian, and hands girlishly white and soft.
“I haven't had a glimpse of you for a week—not since I met you down by the river. Where have you been?” he whispered.
“Here. Rex went lame, and Dick wouldn't let me ride any other horse, since that day Goldie bolted—and so the hills have called in vain. I've stayed at home and made quantities of Duchesse lace—I almost finished a love of a center piece—and mama thinks I have reformed. But Rex is better, and tomorrow I'm going somewhere.”
“Better help me hunt some horses that have been running down Lost Canyon way. I'm going to look for them to-morrow,” Keith suggested, as calmly as was compatible with his eagerness and his method of speech. I doubt if any man can whisper things to a girl he loves, and do it calmly. I know Keith's heart was pounding.
“I shall probably ride in the opposite direction,” Beatrice told him wickedly. She wondered if he thought she would run at his beck.
“I never saw you in this dress before,” Keith murmured, his eyes caressing.
“No? You may never again,” she said. “I have so many things to wear out, you know.”
“I like it,” he declared, as emphatically as he could, and whisper. “It is just the color of your cheeks, after the wind has been kissing them a while.”
“Fancy a cowboy saying pretty things like that!”
Beatrice's cheeks did not wait for the wind to kiss them pink.
“Ya-as, only fawncy, ye knaw.” His eyes were daringly mocking.
“For shame, Mr. Cameron! Sir Redmond would not mimic your speech.”
“Good reason why; he couldn't, not if he tried a thousand years.”
Beatrice knew this was the truth, so she fell back upon dignity.
“We will not discuss that subject, I think.”
“I don't want to, anyway. I know another subject a million times more interesting than Sir Redmond.”
“Indeed!” Beatrice's eyebrows were at their highest. “And what is it, then?”
“You!” Keith caught her hand; his eyes compelled her.
“I think,” said Beatrice, drawing her hand away, “we will not discuss that subject, either.”
“Why?” Keith's eyes continued to woo.
“Because.”
It occurred to Beatrice that an unsophisticated girl might easily think Keith in earnest, with that look in his eyes.
Dorman, scowling at them over his shoulder, unconsciously did his divinity a service. Beatrice pursed her lips in a way that drove Keith nearly wild, and took up the weapon of silence.
“You said you women are alone—where is milord?” Keith began again, after two minutes of lying there watching her.
“Sir Redmond is in Helena, on business. He's been making arrangements to lease a lot of land.”
“Ah-h!” Keith snapped a twig off a dead willow.
“We look for him home to-day, and Dick drove in to meet the train.”
“So the Pool has gone to leasing land?” The laugh had gone out of Keith's eyes; they were clear and keen.
“Yes—the plan is to lease the Pine Ridge country, and fence it. I suppose you know where that is.”
“I ought to,” Keith said quietly. “It's funny Dick never mentioned it.”
“It isn't Dick's idea,” Beatrice told him. “It was Sir Redmond's. Dick is rather angry, I think, and came near quarreling with Sir Redmond about it. But English capital controls the Pool, you know, and Sir Redmond controls the English capital, so he can adopt whatever policy he chooses. The way he explained the thing to me, it seems a splendid plan—don't you think so?”
“Yes.” Keith's tone was not quite what he meant it to be; he did not intend it to be ironical, as it was. “It's a snap for the Pool, all right. It gives them a cinch on the best of the range, and all the water. I didn't give milord credit for such business sagacity.”
Beatrice leaned over that she might read his eyes, but Keith turned his face away. In the shock of what he had just learned, he was, at the moment, not the lover; he was the small cattleman who is being forced out of the business by the octopus of combined capital. It was not less bitter that the woman he loved was one of the tentacles reaching out to crush him. And they could do it; they—the whole affair resolved itself into a very simple scheme, to Keith. The gauntlet had been thrown down—because of this girl beside him. It was not so much business acumen as it was the antagonism of a rival that had prompted the move. Keith squared his shoulders, and mentally took up the gauntlet. He might lose in the range fight, but he would win the girl, if it were in the power of love to do it.
“Why that tone? I hope it isn't—will it inconvenience you?”
“Oh, no. No, not at all. No—” Keith seemed to forget that a superabundance of negatives breeds suspicion of sincerity.
“I'm afraid that means that it will. And I'm sure Sir Redmond never meant—”
“I believe that kid has got a bite at last,” Keith interrupted, getting up. “Let me take hold, there, Dorman; you'll be in the creek yourself in a second.” He landed a four-inch fish, carefully rebaited the hook, cast the line into a promising eddy, gave the rod over to Dorman, and went back to Beatrice, who had been watching him with troubled eyes.
“Mr. Cameron, if I had known—” Beatrice was good-hearted, if she was fond of playing with a man's heart.
“I hope you're not letting that business worry you, Miss Lansell. You remind me of a painting I saw once in Boston. It was called June.”
“But this is August, so I don't apply. Isn't there some way you—”
“Did you hear about that train-robbery up the line last week?” Keith settled himself luxuriously upon his back, with his hands clasped under his head, and his hat tipped down over his eyes—but not enough to prevent him from watching his Heart's Desire. And in his eyes laughter—and something sweeter—lurked. If Sir Redmond had wealth to fight with, Keith's weapon was far and away more dangerous, for it was the irresistible love of a masterful man—the love that sweeps obstacles away like straws.
“I am not interested in train-robberies,” Beatrice told him, her eyes still clouded with trouble. “I want to talk about this lease.”
“They got one fellow the next day, and another got rattled and gave himself up; but the leader of the gang, one of Montana's pet outlaws, is still ranging somewhere in the hills. You want to be careful about riding off alone; you ought to let some one—me, for instance—go along to look after you.”
“Pshaw!” said his Heart's Desire, smiling reluctantly. “I'm not afraid. Do you suppose, if Sir Redmond had known—”
“Those fellows made quite a haul—almost enough to lease the whole country, if they wanted to. Something over fifty thousand dollars—and a strong box full of sand, that the messenger was going to fool them with. He did, all right; but they weren't so slow. They hustled around and got the money, and he lost his sand into the bargain.”
“Was that meant for a pun?” Beatrice blinked her big eyes at him. “If you're quite through with the train-robbers, perhaps you will tell me how—”
“I'm glad old Mother Nature didn't give every woman an odd dimple beside the mouth,” Keith observed, reaching for her hat, and running a ribbon caressingly through his fingers.
“Why?” Beatrice smoothed the dimple complacently with her finger-tips.
“Why? Oh, it would get kind of monotonous, wouldn't it?”
“This from a man known chiefly for his pretty speeches!” Beatrice's laugh had a faint tinge of chagrin.
“Wouldn't pretty speeches get monotonous, too?” Keith's eyes were laughing at her.
“Yours wouldn't,” she retorted, spitefully, and immediately bit her lip and hoped he would not consider that a bid for more pretty speeches.
“Be'trice, dis hopper is awf-lly wilted!” came a sepulchral whisper from Dorman.
Keith sighed, and went and baited the hook again. When he returned to Beatrice, his mood had changed.
“I want you to promise—”
“I never make promises of any sort, Mr. Cameron.” Beatrice had fallen back upon her airy tone, which was her strongest weapon of defense—unless one except her liquid-air smile.
“I wasn't thinking of asking much,” Keith went on coolly. “I only wanted to ask you not to worry about that leasing business.”
“Are you worrying about it, Mr. Cameron?”
“That isn't the point. No, I can't say I expect to lose sleep over it. I hope you will dismiss anything I may have said from your mind.”
“But I don't understand. I feel that you blame Sir Redmond, when I'm sure he—”
“I did not say I blamed anybody. I think we'll not discuss it.”
“Yes, I think we shall. You'll tell me all about it, if I want to know.” Beatrice adopted her coaxing tone, which never had failed her.
“Oh, no!” Keith laughed a little. “A girl can't always have her own way just because she wants it, even if she—”
“I've got a fish, Mr. Cam'ron!” Dorman squealed, and Keith was obliged to devote another five minutes to diplomacy.
“I think you have fished long enough, honey,” Beatrice told Dorman decidedly. “It's nearly dinner time, and Looey Sam won't have time to fry your fish if you don't hurry home. Shall I tell Dick you wished to see him, Mr. Cameron?”
“It's nothing important, so I won't trouble you,” Keith replied, in a tone that matched hers for cool courtesy. “I'll see him to-morrow, probably.” He helped Dorman reel in his line, cut a willow-wand and strung the three fish upon it by the gills, washed his hands leisurely in the creek, and dried them on his handkerchief, just as if nothing bothered him in the slightest degree. Then he went over and smoothed Redcloud's mane and pulled a wisp of forelock from under the brow-band, and commanded him to shake hands, which the horse did promptly.
“I want to shake hands wis your pony, too,” Dorman cried, and dropped pole and fish heedlessly into the grass.
“All right, kid.”
Dorman went up gravely and clasped Redcloud's raised fetlock solemnly, while the tall cow-puncher smiled down at him.
“Kiss him, Redcloud,” he said softly; and then, when the horse's nose was thrust in his face: “No, not me—kiss the kid.” He lifted the child up in his arms, and when Redcloud touched his soft nose to Dorman's cheek and lifted his lip for a dainty, toothless nibble, Dorman was speechless with fright and rapture thrillingly combined.
“Now run home with your fish; it lacks only two hours and forty minutes to dinner time, and it will take at least twenty minutes for the fish to fry—so you see you'll have to hike.”
Beatrice flushed and looked at him sharply, but Keith was getting into the saddle and did not appear to remember she was there. The fingers that were tying her hat-ribbons under her chin fumbled awkwardly and trembled. Beatrice would have given a good deal at that moment to know just what Keith Cameron was thinking; and she was in a blind rage with herself to think that it mattered to her what he thought.
When he lifted his hat she only nodded curtly. She mimicked every beast and bird she could think of on the way home, to wipe him and his horse from the memory of Dorman, whose capacity for telling things best left untold was simply marvelous.
It is saying much for Beatrice's powers of entertainment that Dorman quite forgot to say anything about Mr. Cameron and his pony, and chattered to his auntie and grandmama about kitties up in a tree, and lost lambs and sleepy birds, until he was tucked into bed that night. It was not until then that Beatrice felt justified in drawing a long breath. Not that she cared whether any one knew of her meeting Keith Cameron, only that her mother would instantly take alarm and preach to her about the wickedness of flirting; and Beatrice was not in the mood for sermons.
“Dick, I wish you'd tell me about this leasing business. There are points which I don't understand.” Beatrice leaned over and smoothed Rex's sleek shoulder with her hand.
“What do you want to understand it for? The thing is done now. We've got the fence-posts strung, and a crew hired to set them.”
“You needn't snap your words like that, Dick. It doesn't matter—only I was wondering why Mr. Cameron acted so queer yesterday when I told him about it.”
“You told Keith? What did he say?”
“He didn't say anything. He just looked things.”
“Where did you see him?” Dick wanted to know.
“Well, dear me! I don't see that it matters where I saw him. You're getting as inquisitive as mama. If you think it concerns you, why, I met him accidentally when I was fishing with Dorman. He was coming to see you, but you were gone, so he stopped and talked for a few minutes. Was there anything so strange about that? And I told him you were leasing the Pine Ridge country, and he looked—well, peculiar. But he wouldn't say anything.”
“Well, he had good reason for looking peculiar. But you needn't have told him I did it, Trix. Lay that at milord's door, where it belongs. I don't want Keith to blame me.”
“But why should he blame anybody? It isn't his land, is it?”
“No, it isn't. But—you see, Trix, it's this way: A man goes somewhere and buys a ranch—or locates on a claim—and starts into the cattle business. He may not own more than a few hundred acres of land, but if he has much stock he needs miles of prairie country, with water, for them to range on. It's an absolute necessity, you see. He takes care to locate where there is plenty of public land that is free to anybody's cattle.
“Take the Pool outfit, for instance. We don't own land enough to feed one-third of our cattle. We depend on government land for range for them. The Cross outfit is the same, only Keith's is on a smaller scale. He's got to have range outside his own land, which is mostly hay land. This part of the State is getting pretty well settled up with small ranchers, and then the sheep men keep crowding in wherever they can get a show—and sheep will starve cattle to death; they leave a range as bare as a prairie-dog town. So there's only one good bit of range left around here, and that's the Pine Ridge country, as it's called. That's our main dependence for winter range; and now when this drought has struck us, and everything is drying up, we've had to turn all our cattle down there on account of water.
“Ever since I took charge of the Pool, Keith and I threw in together and used the same range, worked our crews together, and fought the sheepmen together. There was a time when they tried to gobble the Pine Ridge range, but it didn't go. Keith and I made up our minds that we needed it worse than they did—and we got it. Our punchers had every sheep herder bluffed out till there wasn't a mutton-chewer could keep a bunch of sheep on that range over-night.
“Now, this lease law was made by stockmen, for stockmen. They can lease land from the government, fence it—and they've got a cinch on it as long as the lease lasts. A cow outfit can corral a heap of range that way. There's the trick of leasing every other section or so, and then running a fence around the whole chunk; and that's what the Pool has done to the Pine Ridge. But you mustn't repeat that, Trix.
“Milord wasn't long getting on to the leasing graft; in fact, it turns out the company got wind of it over in England, and sent him over here to see what could be done in that line. He's done it, all right enough!
“And there's the Cross outfit, frozen out completely. The Lord only knows what Keith will do with his cattle now, for we'll have every drop of water under fence inside of a month. He's in a hole, for sure. I expect he feels pretty sore with me, too, but I couldn't help it. I explained how it was to milord, but—you can't persuade an Englishman, any more than you can a—”
“I think,” put in Beatrice firmly, “Sir Redmond did quite right. It isn't his fault that Mr. Cameron owns more cattle than he can feed. If he was sent over here to lease the land, it was his duty to do so. Still, I really am sorry for Mr. Cameron.”
“Keith won't sit down and take his medicine if he can help it,” Dick said moodily. “He could sell out, but I don't believe he will. He's more apt to fight.”
“I can't see how fighting will help him,” Beatrice returned spiritedly.
“Well, there's one thing,” retorted Dick. “If milord wants that fence to stand he'd better stay and watch it. I'll bet money he won't more than strike Liverpool till about forty miles, more or less, of Pool fence will need repairs mighty bad—which it won't get, so far as I'm concerned.”
“Do you mean that Keith Cameron would destroy our fencing?”
Dick grinned. “He'll be a fool if he don't, Trix. You can tell milord he'd better send for all his traps, and camp right here till that lease runs out. My punchers will have something to do beside ride fence.”
“I shall certainly tell Sir Redmond,” Beatrice threatened. “You and Mr. Cameron hate him just because he's English. You won't see what a splendid fellow he is. It's your duty to stand by him in this business, instead of taking sides with Keith Cameron. Why didn't he lease that land himself, if he wanted to?”
“Because he plays fair.”
“Meaning, I suppose, that Sir Redmond doesn't. I didn't think you would be so unjust. Sir Redmond is a perfect gentleman.”
“Well, you've got a chance to marry your 'perfect gentleman,” Dick retorted, savagely. “It's a wonder you don't take him if you think so highly of him.”
“I probably shall. At any rate, he isn't a male flirt.”
“You don't seem to fancy a fellow that can give you as good as you send,” Dick rejoined. “I thought you wouldn't find Keith such easy game, even if he does live on a cattle ranch. You can't rope him into making a fool of himself for your amusement, and I'm glad of it.”
“Don't do your shouting too soon. If you could overhear some of the things he says you wouldn't be so sure—”
“I suppose you take them all for their face value,” grinned Dick ironically.
“No, I don't! I'm not a simple country girl, let me remind you. Since you are so sure of him, I'll have the pleasure of saying, 'No, thank you, sir,' to your Keith Cameron—just to convince you I can.”
“Oh, you will! Well, you just tell me when you do, Trix, and I'll give you your pick of all the saddle horses on the ranch.”
“I'll take Rex, and you may as well consider him mine. Oh, you men! A few smiles, judiciously dispensed, and—” Beatrice smiled most exasperatingly at her brother, and Dick went moody and was very poor company the rest of the way home.