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+Project Gutenberg's Her Prairie Knight, by B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Her Prairie Knight
+
+Author: B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
+
+Posting Date: October 10, 2008 [EBook #1908]
+Release Date: September, 1999
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Mary Starr
+
+
+
+
+
+HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT
+
+By B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     1. Stranded on the Prairie
+     2. Handsome Cowboy to the Rescue
+     3. Tilt With Sir Redmond
+     4. Beatrice Learns a New Language
+     5. The Search for Dorman
+     6. Mrs. Lansell's Lecture
+     7. Beatrice's Wild Ride
+     8. Dorman Plays Cupid
+     9. What It Meant to Keith
+     10. Pine Ridge Range Ablaze
+     11. Sir Redmond Waits His Answer
+     12. Held Up by Mr. Kelly
+     13. Keith's Masterful Wooing
+     14. Sir Redmond Gets His Answer
+
+
+
+
+
+HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1. Stranded on the Prairie.
+
+
+"By George, look behind us! I fancy we are going to have a storm." Four
+heads turned as if governed by one brain; four pairs of eyes, of varied
+color and character, swept the wind-blown wilderness of tender green,
+and gazed questioningly at the high-piled thunderheads above. A
+small boy, with an abundance of yellow curls and white collar, almost
+precipitated himself into the prim lap of a lady on the rear seat.
+
+"Auntie, will God have fireworks? Say, auntie, will He? Can I say
+prayers widout kneelin' down'? Uncle Redmon' crowds so. I want to pray
+for fireworks, auntie. Can I?"
+
+"Do sit down, Dorman. You'll fall under the wheel, and then auntie would
+not have any dear little boy. Dorman, do you hear me? Redmond, do
+take that child down! How I wish Parks were here. I shall have nervous
+prostration within a fortnight."
+
+Sir Redmond Hayes plucked at the white collar, and the small boy retired
+between two masculine forms of no mean proportions. His voice, however,
+rose higher.
+
+"You'll get all the fireworks you want, young man, without all that
+hullabaloo," remarked the driver, whom Dorman had been told, at the
+depot twenty miles back, he must call his Uncle Richard.
+
+"I love storms," came cheerfully from the rear seat--but the voice was
+not the prim voice of "auntie." "Do you have thunder and lightning out
+here, Dick?"
+
+"We do," assented Dick. "We don't ship it from the East in refrigerator
+cars, either. It grows wild."
+
+The cheerful voice was heard to giggle.
+
+"Richard," came in tired, reproachful accents from a third voice behind
+him, "you were reared in the East. I trust you have not formed the
+pernicious habit of speaking slightingly of your birthplace."
+
+That, Dick knew, was his mother. She had not changed appreciably since
+she had nagged him through his teens. Not having seen her since, he was
+certainly in a position to judge.
+
+"Trix asked about the lightning," he said placatingly, just as he was
+accustomed to do, during the nagging period. "I was telling her."
+
+"Beatrice has a naturally inquiring mind," said the tired voice, laying
+reproving stress upon the name.
+
+"Are you afraid of lightning, Sir Redmond?" asked the cheerful
+girl-voice.
+
+Sir Redmond twisted his neck to smile back at her. "No, so long as it
+doesn't actually chuck me over."
+
+After that there was silence, so far as human voices went, for a time.
+
+"How much farther is it, Dick?" came presently from the girl.
+
+"Not more than ten--well, maybe twelve--miles. You'll think it's twenty,
+though, if the rain strikes 'Dobe Flat before we do. That's just what
+it's going to do, or I'm badly mistaken. Hawk! Get along, there!"
+
+"We haven't an umbrella with us," complained the tired one. "Beatrice,
+where did you put my raglan?"
+
+"In the big wagon, mama, along with the trunks and guns and saddles, and
+Martha and Katherine and James."
+
+"Dear me! I certainly told you, Beatrice--"
+
+"But, mama, you gave it to me the last thing, after the maids were in
+the wagon, and said you wouldn't wear it. There isn't room here for
+another thing. I feel like a slice of pressed chicken."
+
+"Auntie, I want some p'essed chicken. I'm hungry, auntie! I want some
+chicken and a cookie--and I want some ice-cream."
+
+"You won't get any," said the young woman, with the tone of finality.
+"You can't eat me, Dorman, and I'm the only thing that looks good enough
+to eat."
+
+"Beatrice!" This, of course, from her mother, whose life seemed
+principally made up of a succession of mental shocks, brought on by her
+youngest, dearest, and most irrepressible.
+
+"I have Dick's word for it, mama; he said so, at the depot."
+
+"I want some chicken, auntie."
+
+"There is no chicken, dear," said the prim one. "You must be a patient
+little man."
+
+"I won't. I'm hungry. Mens aren't patient when dey're hungry." A small,
+red face rose, like a tiny harvest moon, between the broad, masculine
+backs on the front seat.
+
+"Dorman, sit down! Redmond!"
+
+A large, gloved hand appeared against the small moon and it set
+ignominiously and prematurely, in the place where it had risen. Sir
+Redmond further extinguished it with the lap robe, for the storm,
+whooping malicious joy, was upon them.
+
+First a blinding glare and a deafening crash. Then rain--sheets of it,
+that drenched where it struck. The women huddled together under the
+doubtful protection of the light robe and shivered. After that, wind
+that threatened to overturn the light spring wagon; then hail that
+bounced and hopped like tiny, white rubber balls upon the ground.
+
+The storm passed as suddenly as it came, but the effect remained. The
+road was sodden with the water which had fallen, and as they went down
+the hill to 'Dobe Flat the horses strained at the collar and plodded
+like a plow team. The wheels collected masses of adobe, which stuck like
+glue and packed the spaces between the spokes. Twice Dick got out and
+poked the heavy mess from the wheels with Sir Redmond's stick--which
+was not good for the stick, but which eased the drag upon the horses
+wonderfully--until the wheels accumulated another load.
+
+"Sorry to dirty your cane," Dick apologized, after the second halt. "You
+can rinse it off, though, in the creek a few miles ahead."
+
+"Don't mention it!" said Sir Redmond, somewhat dubiously. It was his
+favorite stick, and he had taken excellent care of it. It was finely
+polished, and it had his name and regiment engraved upon the silver
+knob--and a date which the Boers will not soon forget, nor the English,
+for that matter.
+
+"We'll soon be over the worst," Dick told them, after a time. "When we
+climb that hill we'll have a hard, gravelly trail straight to the ranch.
+I'm sorry it had to storm; I wanted you to enjoy this trip."
+
+"I am enjoying it," Beatrice assured him. "It's something new, at any
+rate, and anything is better than the deadly monotony of Newport."
+
+"Beatrice!" cried her mother "I'm ashamed of you!"
+
+"You needn't be, mama. Why won't you just be sorry for yourself, and
+let it end there? I know you hated to come, poor dear; but you wouldn't
+think of letting me come alone, though I'm sure I shouldn't have minded.
+This is going to be a delicious summer--I feel it in my bones."
+
+"Be-atrice!"
+
+"Why, mama? Aren't young ladies supposed to have bones?"
+
+"Young ladies are not supposed to make use of unrefined expressions.
+Your poor sister."
+
+"There, mama. Dear Dolly didn't live upon stilts, I'm sure. Even when
+she married."
+
+"Be-atrice!"
+
+"Dear me, mama! I hope you are not growing peevish. Peevish elderly
+people--"
+
+"Auntie! I want to go home!" the small boy wailed.
+
+"You cannot go home now, dear," sighed his guardian angel. "Look at the
+pretty--" She hesitated, groping vaguely for some object to which she
+might conscientiously apply the adjective.
+
+"Mud," suggested Beatrice promptly "Look at the wheels, Dorman; they're
+playing patty-cake. See, now they say, 'Roll 'em, and roll 'em,' and
+now, 'Toss in the oven to bake!' And now--"
+
+"Auntie, I want to get out an' play patty-cake, like de wheels. I want
+to awf'lly!"
+
+"Beatrice, why did you put that into his head?" her mother demanded,
+fretfully.
+
+"Never mind, honey," called Beatrice cheeringly. "You and I will make
+hundreds of mud pies when we get to Uncle Dick's ranch. Just think, hon,
+oodles of beautiful, yellow mud just beside the door!"
+
+"Look here, Trix! Seems to me you're promising a whole lot you can't
+make good. I don't live in a 'dobe patch."
+
+"Hush, Dick; don't spoil everything. You don't know Dorman.'
+
+"Beatrice! What must Miss Hayes and Sir Redmond think of you? I'm sure
+Dorman is a sweet child, the image of poor, dear Dorothea, at his age."
+
+"We all think Dorman bears a strong resemblance to his father," said his
+Aunt Mary.
+
+Beatrice, scenting trouble, hurried to change the subject. "What's this,
+Dick--the Missouri River?"
+
+"Hardly. This is the water that didn't fall in the buggy. It isn't deep;
+it makes bad going worse, that's all."
+
+Thinking to expedite matters, he struck Hawk sharply across the flank.
+It was a foolish thing to do, and Dick knew it when he did it; ten
+seconds later he knew it better.
+
+Hawk reared, tired as he was, and lunged viciously.
+
+The double-trees snapped and splintered; there was a brief interval
+of plunging, a shower of muddy water in that vicinity, and then two
+draggled, disgusted brown horses splashed indignantly to shore and took
+to the hills with straps flying.
+
+"By George!" ejaculated Sir Redmond, gazing helplessly after them. "But
+this is a beastly bit of luck, don't you know!"
+
+"Oh, you Hawk--" Dick, in consideration of his companions, finished the
+remark in the recesses of his troubled soul, where the ladies could not
+overhear.
+
+"What comes next, Dick?" The voice of Beatrice was frankly curious.
+
+"Next, I'll have to wade out and take after those--" This sentence,
+also, was rounded out mentally.
+
+"In the meantime, what shall we do?"
+
+"You'll stay where you are--and thank the good Lord you were not
+upset. I'm sorry,"--turning so that he could look deprecatingly at Miss
+Hayes--"your welcome to the West has been so--er--strenuous. I'll try
+and make it up to you, once you get to the ranch. I hope you won't let
+this give you a dislike of the country."
+
+"Oh, no," said the spinster politely. "I'm sure it is a--a very nice
+country, Mr. Lansell."
+
+"Well, there's nothing to be done sitting here." Dick climbed down over
+the dashboard into the mud and water.
+
+Sir Redmond was not the man to shirk duty because it happened to be
+disagreeable, as the regiment whose name was engraved upon his cane
+could testify. He glanced regretfully at his immaculate leggings and
+followed.
+
+"I fancy you ladies won't need any bodyguard," he said. Looking back, he
+caught the light of approval shining in the eyes of Beatrice, and after
+that he did not mind the mud, but waded to shore and joined in the
+chase quite contentedly. The light of approval, shining in the eyes of
+Beatrice, meant much to Sir Redmond.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2. A Handsome Cowboy to the Rescue.
+
+
+Beatrice took immediate possession of the front seat, that she might
+comfort her heartbroken young nephew.
+
+"Never mind, honey. They'll bring the horses back in a minute, and we'll
+make them run every step. And when you get to Uncle Dick's ranch you'll
+see the nicest things--bossy calves, and chickens, and, maybe, some
+little pigs with curly tails."
+
+All this, though alluring, failed of its purpose; the small boy
+continued to weep, and his weeping was ear-splitting.
+
+"Be still, Dorman, or you'll certainly scare all the coyotes to death."
+
+"Where are dey?"
+
+"Oh, all around. You keep watch, hon, and maybe you'll see one put the
+tip of his nose over a hill."
+
+"What hill?" Dorman skipped a sob, and scoured his eyes industriously
+with both fists.
+
+"M-m--that hill. That little one over there. Watch close, or you'll miss
+him."
+
+The dove of peace hovered over them, and seemed actually about to
+alight. Beatrice leaned back with a relieved breath.
+
+"It is good of you, my dear, to take so much trouble," sighed his Aunt
+Mary. "How I am to manage without Parks I'm sure I cannot tell."
+
+"You are tired, and you miss your tea." soothed Beatrice, optimistic as
+to tone. "When we all have a good rest we will be all right. Dorman will
+find plenty to amuse him. We are none of us exactly comfortable now."
+
+"Comfortable!" sniffed her mother. "I am half dead. Richard wrote such
+glowing letters home that I was misled. If I had dreamed of the true
+conditions, Miss Hayes, I should never have sanctioned this wild idea of
+Beatrice's to come out and spend the summer with Richard."
+
+"It's coming, Be'trice! There it is! Will it bite, auntie? Say, will it
+bite?"
+
+Beatrice looked. A horseman came over the hill and was galloping down
+the long slope toward them. His elbows were lifted contrary to the
+mandates of the riding-school, his long legs were encased in something
+brown and fringed down the sides. His gray hat was tilted rakishly up
+at the back and down in front, and a handkerchief was knotted loosely
+around his throat. Even at that distance he struck her as different from
+any one she had ever seen.
+
+"It's a highwayman!" whispered Mrs. Lansell "Hide your purse, my dear!"
+
+"I--I--where?" Miss Hayes was all a-flutter with fear.
+
+"Drop it down beside the wheel, into the water. Quick! I shall drop my
+watch."
+
+"He--he is coming on this side! He can see!" Her whisper was full of
+entreaty and despair.
+
+"Give them here. He can't see on both sides of the buggy at once." Mrs.
+Lansell, being an American--a Yankee at that--was a woman of resource.
+
+"Beatrice, hand me your watch quick!"
+
+Beatrice paid no attention, and there was no time to insist upon
+obedience. The horseman had slowed at the water's edge, and was
+regarding them with some curiosity. Possibly he was not accustomed to
+such a sight as the one that met his eyes. He came splashing toward
+them, however, as though he intended to investigate the cause of their
+presence, alone upon the prairie, in a vehicle which had no horses
+attached in the place obviously intended for such attachment. When he
+was close upon them he stopped and lifted the rakishly tilted gray hat.
+
+"You seem to be in trouble. Is there anything I can do for you?" His
+manner was grave and respectful, but his eyes, Beatrice observed, were
+having a quiet laugh of their own.
+
+"You can't get auntie's watch, nor gran'mama's. Gran'mama frowed 'em all
+down in the mud. She frowed her money down in the mud, too," announced
+Dorman, with much complacency. "Be'trice says you is a coyote. Is you?"
+
+There was a stunned interval, during which nothing was heard but the
+wind whispering things to the grass. The man's eyes stopped laughing;
+his jaw set squarely; also, his brows drew perceptibly closer together.
+It was Mrs. Lansell's opinion that he looked murderous.
+
+Then Beatrice put her head down upon the little, blue velvet cap of
+Dorman and laughed. There was a rollicking note in her laughter that was
+irresistible, and the eyes of the man relented and joined in her mirth.
+His lips forgot they were angry and insulted, and uncovered some very
+nice teeth.
+
+"We aren't really crazy," Beatrice told him, sitting up straight and
+drying her eyes daintily with her handkerchief. "We were on our way to
+Mr. Lansell's ranch, and the horses broke something and ran away, and
+Dick--Mr. Lansell--has gone to catch them. We're waiting until he does."
+
+"I see." From the look in his eyes one might guess that what he saw
+pleased him. "Which direction did they take?"
+
+Beatrice waved a gloved hand vaguely to the left, and, without another
+word, the fellow touched his hat, turned and waded to shore and galloped
+over the ridge she indicated; and the clucketycluck of his horse's hoofs
+came sharply across to them until he dipped out of sight.
+
+"You see, he wasn't a robber," Beatrice remarked, staring after him
+speculatively. "How well he rides! One can see at a glance that he
+almost lives in the saddle. I wonder who he is."
+
+"For all you know, Beatrice, he may be going now to murder Richard and
+Sir Redmond in cold blood. He looks perfectly hardened."
+
+"Oh, do you think it possible?" cried Miss Hayes, much alarmed.
+
+"No!" cried Beatrice hotly. "One who did not know your horror of
+novels, mama, might suspect you of feeding your imagination upon 'penny
+dreadfuls.' I'm sure he is only a cowboy, and won't harm anybody."
+
+"Cowboys are as bad as highwaymen," contended her mother, "or worse. I
+have read how they shoot men for a pastime, and without even the excuse
+of robbery."
+
+"Is it possible?" quavered Miss Hayes faintly.
+
+"No, it isn't!" Beatrice assured her indignantly.
+
+"He has the look of a criminal," declared Mrs. Lansell, in the positive
+tone of one who speaks from intimate knowledge of the subject under
+discussion. "I only hope he isn't going to murder--"
+
+"They're coming back, mama," interrupted Beatrice, who had been watching
+closely the hilltop. "No, it's that man, and he is driving the horses."
+
+"He's chasing them," corrected her mother testily. "A horse thief, no
+doubt. He's going to catch them with his snare--"
+
+"Lasso, mama."
+
+"Well, lasso. Where can Richard be? To think the fellow should be
+so bold! But out here, with miles upon miles of open, and no police
+protection anything is possible. We might all be murdered, and no one
+be the wiser for days--perhaps weeks. There, he has caught them." She
+leaned back and clasped her hands, ready to meet with fortitude whatever
+fate might have in store.
+
+"He's bringing them out to us, mama. Can't you see the man is only
+trying to help us?"
+
+Mrs. Lansell, beginning herself to suspect him of honest intentions,
+sniffed dissentingly and let it go at that. The fellow was certainly
+leading the horses toward them, and Sir Redmond and Dick, appearing over
+the hill just then, proved beyond doubt that neither had been murdered
+in cold blood, or in any other unpleasant manner.
+
+"We're all right now, mother," Dick called, the minute he was near
+enough.
+
+His mother remarked skeptically that she hoped possibly she had been in
+too great haste to conceal her valuables--that Miss Hayes might not feel
+grateful for her presence of mind, and was probably wondering if mud
+baths were not injurious to fine, jeweled time-pieces. Mrs. Lansell
+was uncomfortable, mentally and physically, and her manner was frankly
+chilly when her son presented the stranger as his good friend and
+neighbor, Keith Cameron. She was still privately convinced that he
+looked a criminal--though, if pressed, she must surely have admitted
+that he was an uncommonly good-looking young outlaw. It would seem
+almost as if she regarded his being a decent, law-abiding citizen as
+pure effrontery.
+
+Miss Hayes greeted him with a smile of apprehension which plainly amused
+him. Beatrice was frankly impersonal in her attitude; he represented a
+new species of the genus man, and she, too, evidently regarded him in
+the light of a strange animal, viewed unexpectedly at close range.
+
+While he was helping Dick mend the double-tree with a piece of rope, she
+studied him curiously. He was tall--taller even than Sir Redmond, and
+more slender. Sir Redmond had the straight, sturdy look of the soldier
+who had borne the brunt of hard marches and desperate fighting; Mr.
+Cameron, the lithe, unconscious grace and alertness of the man whose
+work demands quick movement and quicker eye and brain. His face was
+tanned to a clear bronze which showed the blood darkly beneath; Sir
+Redmond's year of peace had gone far toward lightening his complexion.
+Beatrice glanced briefly at him and admired his healthy color, and was
+glad he did not have the look of an Indian. At the same time, she caught
+herself wishing that Sir Redmond's eyes were hazel, fringed with very
+long, dark lashes and topped with very straight, dark brows--eyes which
+seemed always to have some secret cause for mirth, and to laugh quite
+independent of the rest of the face. Still, Sir Redmond had very nice
+eyes--blue, and kind, and steadfast, and altogether dependable--and his
+lashes were quite nice enough for any one. In just four seconds Beatrice
+decided that, after all, she did not like hazel eyes that twinkle
+continually; they make one feel that one is being laughed at, which is
+not comfortable. In six seconds she was quite sure that this Mr. Cameron
+thought himself handsome, and Beatrice detested a man who was proud of
+his face or his figure; such a man always tempted her to "make faces,"
+as she used to do over the back fence when she was little.
+
+She mentally accused him of trying to show off his skill with his rope
+when he leaned and fastened it to the rig, rode out ahead and helped
+drag the vehicle to shore; and it was with some resentment that she
+observed the ease with which he did it, and how horse and rope seemed to
+know instinctively their master's will, and to obey of their own accord.
+
+In all that he had done--and it really seemed as if he did everything
+that needed to be done, while Dick pottered around in the way--he had
+not found it necessary to descend into the mud and water, to the ruin of
+his picturesque, fringed chaps and high-heeled boots. He had worked at
+ease, carelessly leaning from his leathern throne upon the big, roan
+horse he addressed occasionally as Redcloud. Beatrice wondered where he
+got the outlandish name. But, with all his imperfections, she was glad
+she had met him. He really was handsome, whether he knew it or not; and
+if he had a good opinion of himself, and overrated his actions--all the
+more fun for herself! Beatrice, I regret to say, was not above amusing
+herself with handsome young men who overrate their own charms; in fact,
+she had the reputation among her women acquaintances of being a most
+outrageous flirt.
+
+In the very middle of these trouble-breeding meditations, Mr. Cameron
+looked up unexpectedly and met keenly her eyes; and for some reason--let
+us hope because of a guilty conscience--Beatrice grew hot and confused;
+an unusual experience, surely, for a girl who had been out three
+seasons, and has met calmly the eyes of many young men. Until now it had
+been the young men who grew hot and confused; it had never been herself.
+
+Beatrice turned her shoulder toward him, and looked at Sir Redmond, who
+was surreptitiously fishing for certain articles beside the rear wheel,
+at the whispered behest of Mrs. Lansell, and was certainly a sight to
+behold. He was mud to his knees and to his elbows, and he had managed to
+plaster his hat against the wheel and to dirty his face. Altogether, he
+looked an abnormally large child who has been having a beautiful day of
+it in somebody's duck-pond; but Beatrice was nearer, at that moment,
+to loving him than she had been at any time during her six weeks'
+acquaintance with him--and that is saying much, for she had liked him
+from the start.
+
+Mr. Cameron followed her glance, and his eyes did not have the laugh all
+to themselves; his voice joined them, and Beatrice turned upon him and
+frowned. It was not kind of him to laugh at a man who is proving his
+heart to be much larger than his vanity; Beatrice was aware of Sir
+Redmond's immaculateness of attire on most occasions.
+
+"Well," said Dick, gathering up the reins, "you've helped us out of a
+bad scrape, Keith. Come over and take dinner with us to-morrow night.
+I expect we'll be kept riding the rim-rocks, over at the Pool, this
+summer. Unless this sister of mine has changed a lot, she won't rest
+till she's been over every foot of country for forty miles around. It
+will just about keep our strings rode down to a whisper keeping her in
+sight."
+
+"Dear me, Richard!" said his mother. "What Jargon is this you speak?"
+
+"That's good old Montana English, mother. You'll learn it yourself
+before you leave here. I've clean forgot how they used the English
+language at Yale, haven't you, Keith?"
+
+"Just about," Keith agreed. "I'm afraid we'll shock the ladies terribly,
+Dick. We ought to get out on a pinnacle with a good grammar and
+practice."
+
+"Well, maybe. We'll look for you to-morrow, sure. I want you to help map
+out a circle or two for Trix. About next week she'll want to get out and
+scour the range."
+
+"Dear me, Richard! Beatrice is not a charwoman!" This, you will
+understand, was from his mother; perhaps you will also understand that
+she spoke with the rising inflection which conveys a reproof.
+
+When Keith Cameron left them he was laughing quietly to himself, and
+Beatrice's chin was set rather more than usual.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3. A Tilt With Sir Redmond.
+
+
+Beatrice, standing on the top of a steep, grassy slope, was engaged in
+the conventional pastime of enjoying the view. It was a fine view, but
+it was not half as good to look upon as was Beatrice herself, in her
+fresh white waist and brown skirt, with her brown hair fluffing softly
+in the breeze which would grow to a respectable wind later in the day,
+and with her cheeks pink from climbing.
+
+She was up where she could see the river, a broad band of blue in the
+surrounding green, winding away for miles through the hills. The far
+bank stood a straight two hundred feet of gay-colored rock, chiseled, by
+time and stress of changeful weather, into fanciful turrets and towers.
+Above and beyond, where the green began, hundreds of moving dots told
+where the cattle were feeding quietly. Far away to the south, heaps of
+hazy blue and purple slept in the sunshine; Dick had told her those
+were the Highwoods. And away to the west, a jagged line of blue-white
+glimmered and stood upon tip-toes to touch the swimming clouds--touched
+them and pushed above proudly; those were the Rockies. The Bear Paws
+stood behind her; nearer they were--so near they lost the glamour of
+mysterious blue shadows, and became merely a sprawling group of huge,
+pine-covered hills, with ranches dotted here and there in sheltered
+places, with squares of fresh, dark green that spoke of growing crops.
+
+Ten days, and the metropolitan East had faded and become as hazy and
+vague as the Highwoods. Ten days, and the witchery of the West leaped in
+her blood and held her fast in its thralldom.
+
+A sound of scrambling behind her was immediately followed by a smothered
+epithet. Beatrice turned in time to see Sir Redmond pick himself up.
+
+"These grass slopes are confounded slippery, don't you know," he
+explained apologetically. "How did you manage that climb?"
+
+"I didn't." Beatrice smiled. "I came around the end, where the ascent is
+gradual; there's a good path."
+
+"Oh!" Sir Redmond sat down upon a rock and puffed. "I saw you up
+here--and a fellow doesn't think about taking a roundabout course to
+reach his heart's--"
+
+"Isn't it lovely?" Beatrice made haste to inquire.
+
+"Lovely isn't half expressive enough," he told her. "You look--"
+
+"The river is so very blue and dignified. I've been wondering if it has
+forgotten how it must have danced through those hills, away off there.
+When it gets down to the cities--this blue water--it will be muddy and
+nasty looking. The 'muddy Missouri' certainly doesn't apply here. And
+that farther shore is simply magnificent. I wish I might stay here
+forever."
+
+"The Lord forbid!" cried he, with considerable fervor. "There's a dear
+nook in old England where I hope--"
+
+"You did get that mud off your leggings, I see," Beatrice remarked
+inconsequentially. "James must have worked half the time we've been
+here. They certainly were in a mess the last time I saw them."
+
+"Bother the leggings! But I take it that's a good sign, Miss
+Lansell--your taking notice of such things."
+
+Beatrice returned to the landscape. "I wonder who originated that
+phrase, 'The cattle grazing on a thousand hills'? He must have stood
+just here when he said it."
+
+"Wasn't it one of your American poets? Longfellow, or--er--"
+
+Beatrice simply looked at him a minute and said "Pshaw!"
+
+"Well," he retorted, "you don't know yourself who it was."
+
+"And to think," Beatrice went on, ignoring the subject, "some of those
+grazing cows and bossy calves are mine--my very own. I never cared
+before, or thought much about it, till I came out and saw where they
+live, and Dick pointed to a cow and the sweetest little red and white
+calf, and said: 'That's your cow and calf, Trix.' They were dreadfully
+afraid of me, though--I'm afraid they didn't recognize me as their
+mistress. I wanted to get down and pet the calf--it had the dearest
+little snub nose but they bolted, and wouldn't let me near them."
+
+"I fancy they were not accustomed to meeting angels unawares."
+
+"Sir Redmond, I wish you wouldn't. You are so much nicer when you're not
+trying to be nice."
+
+"I'll act a perfect brute," he offered eagerly, "if that will make you
+love me."
+
+"It's hardly worth trying. I think you would make a very poor sort of
+villain, Sir Redmond. You wouldn't even be picturesque."
+
+Sir Redmond looked rather floored. He was a good fighter, was Sir
+Redmond, but he was clumsy at repartee--or, perhaps, he was too much in
+earnest to fence gracefully. Just now he looked particularly foolish.
+
+"Don't you think my brand is pretty? You know what it is, don't you?"
+
+"I'm afraid not," he owned. "I fancy I need a good bit of coaching in
+the matter of brands."
+
+"Yes," agreed Beatrice, "I fancy you do. My brand is a Triangle
+Bar--like this." With a sharp pointed bit of rock she drew a more or
+less exact diagram in the yellow soil. "There are ever so many different
+brands belonging to the Northern Pool; Dick pointed them out to me, but
+I can't remember them. But whenever you see a Triangle Bar you'll be
+looking at my individual property. I think it was nice of Dick to give
+me a brand all my own. Mr. Cameron has a pretty brand, too--a Maltese
+Cross. The Maltese Cross was owned at one time by President Roosevelt.
+Mr. Cameron bought it when he left college and went into the cattle
+business. He 'plays a lone hand,' as he calls it; but his cattle range
+with the Northern Pool, and he and Dick work together a great deal. I
+think he has lovely eyes, don't you?" The eyes of Beatrice were intent
+upon the Bear Paws when she said it--which brought her shoulder toward
+Sir Redmond and hid her face from him.
+
+"I can't say I ever observed Mr. Cameron's eyes," said Sir Redmond
+stiffly.
+
+Beatrice turned back to him, and smiled demurely. When Beatrice smiled
+that very demure smile, of which she was capable, the weather-wise
+generally edged toward their cyclone-cellars. Sir Redmond was not
+weather-wise--he was too much in love with her--and he did not possess a
+cyclone cellar; he therefore suffered much at the hands of Beatrice.
+
+"But surely you must have noticed that deep, deep dimple in his chin?"
+she questioned innocently. Keith Cameron, I may say, did not have a
+dimple in his chin at all; there was, however, a deep crease in it.
+
+"I did not." Sir Redmond rubbed his own chin, which was so far from
+dimpling that is was rounded like half an apricot.
+
+"Dear me! And you sat opposite to him at dinner yesterday, too! I
+suppose, then, you did not observe that his teeth are the whitest,
+evenest."
+
+"They make them cheaply over here, I'm told," he retorted, setting his
+heel emphatically down and annihilating a red and black caterpillar.
+
+"Now, why did you do that? I must say you English are rather brutal?"
+
+"I can't abide worms."
+
+"Well, neither can I. And I think it would be foolish to quarrel about a
+man's good looks," Beatrice said, with surprising sweetness.
+
+Sir Redmond hunched his shoulders and retreated to the comfort of
+his pipe. "A bally lot of good looks!" he sneered. "A woman is never
+convinced, though."
+
+"I am." Beatrice sat down upon a rock and rested her elbows on her knees
+and her chin in her hands--and an adorable picture she made, I assure
+you. "I'm thoroughly convinced of several things. One is Mr. Cameron's
+good looks; another is that you're cross."
+
+"Oh, come, now!" protested Sir Redmond feebly, and sucked furiously at
+his pipe.
+
+"Yes," reiterated Beatrice, examining his perturbed face judicially;
+"you are downright ugly."
+
+The face of Sir Redmond grew redder and more perturbed; just as Beatrice
+meant that it should; she seemed to derive a keen pleasure from goading
+this big, good-looking Englishman to the verge of apoplexy.
+
+"I'm sure I never meant to be rude; but a fellow can't fall down and
+worship every young farmer, don't you know--not even to please you!"
+
+Beatrice smiled and threw a pebble down the slope, watching it bound and
+skip to the bottom, where it rolled away and hid in the grass.
+
+"I love this wide country," she observed, abandoning her torture with
+a suddenness that was a characteristic of her nature. When Beatrice had
+made a man look and act the fool she was ready to stop; one cannot say
+that of every woman. "One can draw long, deep breaths without robbing
+one's neighbor of oxygen. Everything is so big, and broad, and generous,
+out here. One can ride for miles and miles through the grandest, wildest
+places,--and--there aren't any cigar and baking-powder and liver-pill
+signs plastered over the rocks, thank goodness! If man has traveled that
+way before, you do not have the evidence of his passing staring you
+in the face. You can make believe it is all your own--by right of
+discovery. I'm afraid your England would seem rather little and crowded
+after a month or two of this." She swept her hand toward the river, and
+the grass-land beyond, and the mountains rimming the world.
+
+"You should see the moors!" cried Sir Redmond, brightening under this
+peaceful mood of hers. "I fancy you would not find trouble in drawing
+long breaths there. Moor Cottage, where your sister and Wiltmar lived,
+is surrounded by wide stretches of open--not like this, to be sure, but
+not half-bad in its way, either."
+
+"Dolly grew to love that place, though she did write homesick letters at
+first. I was going over, after my coming out--and then came that awful
+accident, when she and Wiltmar were both drowned--and, of course, there
+was nothing to go for. I should have hated the place then, I think. But
+I should like--" Her voice trailed off dreamily, her eyes on the hazy
+Highwoods.
+
+Sir Redmond watched her, his eyes a-shine; Beatrice in this mood was
+something to worship. He was almost afraid to speak, for fear she would
+snuff out the tiny flame of hope which her half-finished sentence had
+kindled. He leaned forward, his face eager.
+
+"Beatrice, only say you will go--with me, dear!"
+
+Beatrice started; for the moment she had forgotten him. Her eyes kept to
+the hills. "Go--to England? One trip at a time, Sir Redmond. I have
+been here only ten days, and we came for three months. Three months of
+freedom in this big, glorious place."
+
+"And then?" His voice was husky.
+
+"And then--freckle lotions by the quart, I expect."
+
+Sir Redmond got upon his feet, and he was rather white around the mouth.
+
+"We Englishmen are a stubborn lot, Miss Beatrice. We won't stop fighting
+until we win."
+
+"We Yankees," retorted she airily, "value our freedom above everything
+else. We won't surrender it without fighting for it first."
+
+He caught eagerly at the lack of finality in her tones. "I don't want to
+take your freedom, Beatrice. I only want the right to love you."
+
+"Oh, as for that, I suppose you may love me as much as you please--only
+so you don't torment me to death talking about it."
+
+Beatrice, not looking particularly tormented, waved answer to Dick, who
+was shouting something up at her, and went blithely down the hill, with
+Sir Redmond following gloomily, several paces behind.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4. Beatrice Learns a New Language.
+
+
+"D'you want to see the boys work a bunch of cattle, Trix?" Dick said
+to her, when she came down to where he was leaning against a high board
+fence, waiting for her.
+
+"'Deed I do, Dicky--only I've no idea what you mean."
+
+"The boys are going to cut out some cattle we've contracted to the
+government--for the Indians, you know. They're holding the bunch over in
+Dry Coulee; it's only three or four miles. I've got to go over and see
+the foreman, and I thought maybe you'd like to go along."
+
+"There's nothing I can think of that I would like better. Won't it be
+fine, Sir Redmond?"
+
+Sir Redmond did not say whether he thought it would be fine or not. He
+still had the white streak around his mouth, and he went through the
+gate and on to the house without a word--which was undoubtedly a
+rude thing to do. Sir Redmond was not often rude. Dick watched him
+speculatively until he was beyond hearing them. Then, "What have you
+done to milord, Trix?" he wanted to know.
+
+"Nothing," said Beatrice.
+
+"Well," Dick said, with decision, "he looks to me like a man that has
+been turned down--hard. I can tell by the back of his neck."
+
+This struck Beatrice, and she began to study the retreating neck of
+her suitor. "I can't see any difference," she announced, after a brief
+scrutiny.
+
+"It's rather sunburned and thick."
+
+"I'll gamble his mind is a jumble of good English oaths--with maybe a
+sprinkling of Boer maledictions. What did you do?"
+
+"Nothing--unless, perhaps, he objects to being disciplined a bit. But I
+also object to being badgered into matrimony--even with Sir Redmond."
+
+"Even with Sir Redmond!" Dick whistled. "He's 'It,' then, is he?"
+
+Beatrice had nothing to say. She walked beside Dick and looked at the
+ground before her.
+
+"He doesn't seem a bad sort, sis, and the title will be nice to have
+in the family, if one cares for such things. Mother does. She was
+disappointed, I take it, that Wiltmar was a younger son."
+
+"Yes, she was. She used to think that Sir Redmond might get killed down
+there fighting the Boers, and then Wiltmar would be next in line. But he
+didn't, and it was Wiltmar who went first. And now oh, it's humiliating,
+Dick! To be thrown at a man's head--" Tears were not far from her voice
+just then.
+
+"I can see she wants you to nab the title. Well, sis, if you don't care
+for the man--"
+
+"I never said I didn't care for him. But I just can't treat him
+decently, with mama dinning that title in my ears day and night. I wish
+there wasn't any title. Oh, it's abominable! Things have come to that
+point where an American girl with money is not supposed to care for
+an Englishman, no matter how nice he may be, if he has a title, or the
+prospect of one. Every one laughs and thinks it's the title she wants;
+they'd think it of me, and they'd say it. They would say Beatrice
+Lansell took her half-million and bought her a lord. And, after a while,
+perhaps Sir Redmond himself would half-believe it--and I couldn't bear
+that! And so I am--unbearably flippant and--I should think he'd hate
+me!"
+
+"So you reversed the natural order of things, and refused him on account
+of the title?" Dick grinned surreptitiously.
+
+"No, I didn't--not quite. I'm afraid he's dreadfully angry with me,
+though. I do wish he wasn't such a dear."
+
+"You're the same old Trix. You've got to be held back from the trail
+you're supposed to take, or you won't travel it; you'll bolt the other
+way. If everybody got together and fought the notion, you would probably
+elope with milord inside a week. Mother means well, but she isn't on to
+her job a little bit. She ought to turn up her nose at the title."
+
+"No fear of that! I've had it before my eyes till I hate the very
+thought of it. I--I wish I could hate him." Beatrice sighed deeply, and
+gave her hand to Dorman, who scurried up to her.
+
+"I'll have the horses saddled right away," said Dick, and left them.
+
+"Where you going, Be'trice? You going to ride a horse? I want to,
+awf'lly."
+
+"I'm afraid you can't, honey; it's too far." Beatrice pushed a yellow
+curl away from his eyes with tender, womanly solicitude.
+
+"Auntie won't care, 'cause I'm a bother. Auntie says she's goin' to send
+for Parks. I don't want Parks; 'sides, Parks is sick. I want a pony, and
+some ledder towsers wis fringes down 'em, and I want some little wheels
+on my feet. Mr. Cam'ron says I do need some little wheels, Be'trice."
+
+"Did he, honey?"
+
+"Yes, he did. I like Mr. Cam'ron, Be'trice; he let me ride his big, high
+pony. He's a berry good pony. He shaked hands wis me, Be'trice--he truly
+did."
+
+"Did he, hon?" Beatrice, I am sorry to say, was not listening. She
+was wondering if Sir Redmond was really angry with her--too angry, for
+instance, to go over where the cattle were. He really ought to go, for
+he had come West in the interest of the Eastern stockholders in the
+Northern Pool, to investigate the actual details of the work. He surely
+would not miss this opportunity, Beatrice thought. And she hoped he was
+not angry.
+
+"Yes, he truly did. Mr. Cam'ron interduced us, Be'trice. He said,
+'Redcloud, dis is Master Dorman Hayes. Shake hands wis my frien'
+Dorman.' And he put up his front hand, Be'trice, and nod his head, and
+I shaked his hand. I dess love that big, high pony, Be'trice. Can I buy
+him, Be'trice?"
+
+"Maybe, kiddie."
+
+"Can I buy him wis my six shiny pennies, Be'trice?"
+
+"Maybe."
+
+"Mr. Cam'ron lives right over that hill, Be'trice. He told me."
+
+"Did he, hon?"
+
+"Yes, he did. He 'vited me over, Be'trice. He's my friend, and I've got
+to buy my big, high pony. I'll let you shake hands wis him, Be'trice.
+I'll interduce him to you. And I'll let you ride on his back, Be'trice.
+Do you want to ride on his back?"
+
+"Yes, honey."
+
+Before Beatrice had time to commit herself they reached the house, and
+she let go Dorman's hand and hurried away to get into her riding-habit.
+
+Dorman straightway went to find his six precious, shiny pennies, which
+Beatrice had painstakingly scoured with silver polish one day to please
+the little tyrant, and which increased their value many times--so many
+times, in fact, that he hid them every night in fear of burglars. Since
+he concealed them each time in a different place, he was obliged to
+ransack his auntie's room every morning, to the great disturbance of
+Martha, the maid, who was an order-loving person.
+
+Martha appeared just when he had triumphantly pounced upon his treasure
+rolled up in the strings of his aunt's chiffon opera-bonnet.
+
+"Mercy upon us, Master Dorman! Whatever have you been doing?"
+
+"I want my shiny pennies," said the young gentleman, composedly
+unwinding the roll, "to buy my big, high pony."
+
+"Naughty, naughty boy, to muss my lady's fine bonnet like that! Look at
+things scattered over the floor, and my lady's fine handkerchiefs and
+gloves--" Martha stopped and meditated whether she might dare to shake
+him.
+
+Dorman was laboriously counting his wealth, with much wrinkling of
+stubby nose and lifting of eyebrows. Having satisfied himself that they
+were really all there, he deigned to look around, with a fine masculine
+disdain of woman's finery.
+
+"Oh, dose old things!" he sniffed. "I always fordet where I put my shiny
+pennies. Robbers might find them if I put them easy places. I'm going to
+buy my big, high pony, and you can't shake his hand a bit, Martha."
+
+"Well, I'm sure I don't want to!" Martha snapped back at him, and went
+down on all fours to gather up the things he had thrown down. "Whatever
+Parks was thinking of, to go and get fever, when she was the only one
+that could manage you, I don't know! And me picking up after you till
+I'm fair sick!"
+
+"I'm glad you is sick," he retorted unfeelingly, and backed to the door.
+"I hopes you get sicker so your stummit makes you hurt. You can't ride
+on my big, high pony."
+
+"Get along with you and your high pony!" cried the exasperated Martha,
+threatening with a hairbrush. Dorman, his six shiny pennies held fast in
+his damp little fist, fled down the stairs and out into the sunlight.
+
+Dick and Beatrice were just ready to ride away from the porch. "I want
+to go wis you, Uncle Dick." Dorman had followed the lead of Beatrice,
+his divinity; he refused to say Richard, though grandmama did object to
+nicknames.
+
+"Up you go, son. You'll be a cow-puncher yourself one of these days.
+I'll not let him fall, and this horse is gentle." This last to satisfy
+Dorman's aunt, who wavered between anxiety and relief.
+
+"You may ride to the gate, Dorman, and then you'll have to hop down
+and run back to your auntie and grandma. We're going too far for you
+to-day." Dick gave him the reins to hold, and let the horse walk to
+prolong the joy of it.
+
+Dorman held to the horn with one hand, to the reins with the other, and
+let his small body swing forward and back with the motion of the horse,
+in exaggerated imitation of his friend, Mr. Cameron. At the gate he
+allowed himself to be set down without protest, smiled importantly
+through the bars, and thrust his arm through as far as it would reach,
+that he might wave good-by. And his divinity smiled back at him, and
+threw him a kiss, which pleased him mightily.
+
+"You must have hurt milord's feelings pretty bad," Dick remarked. "I
+couldn't get him to come. He had to write a letter first, he said."
+
+"I wish, Dick," Beatrice answered, a bit petulantly, "you would stop
+calling him milord."
+
+"Milord's a good name," Dick contended. "It's bad enough to 'Sir' him to
+his face; I can't do it behind his back, Trix. We're not used to fancy
+titles out here, and they don't fit the country, anyhow. I'm like
+you--I'd think a lot more of him if he was just a plain, everyday
+American, so I could get acquainted enough to call him 'Red Hayes.' I'd
+like him a whole lot better."
+
+Beatrice was in no mood for an argument--on that subject, at least.
+She let Rex out and raced over the prairie at a gait which would have
+greatly shocked her mother, who could not understand why Beatrice was
+not content to drive sedately about in the carriage with the rest of
+them.
+
+When they reached the round-up Keith Cameron left the bunch and rode out
+to meet them, and Dick promptly shuffled responsibility for his sister's
+entertainment to the square shoulders of his neighbor.
+
+"Trix wants to wise up on the cattle business, Keith. I'll just turn her
+over to you for a-while, and let you answer her questions; I can't, half
+the time. I want to look through the bunch a little."
+
+Keith's face spoke gratitude, and spoke it plainly. The face of Beatrice
+was frankly inattentive. She was watching the restless, moving mass of
+red backs and glistening horns, with horsemen weaving in and out among
+them in what looked to her a perfectly aimless fashion--until one would
+wheel and dart out into the open, always with a fleeing animal lumbering
+before. Other horsemen would meet him and take up the chase, and he
+would turn and ride leisurely back into the haze and confusion. It was
+like a kaleidoscope, for the scene shifted constantly and was never
+quite the same.
+
+Keith, secure in her absorption, slid sidewise in the saddle and studied
+her face, knowing all the while that he was simply storing up trouble
+for himself. But it is not given a man to flee human nature, and the
+fellow who could sit calmly beside Beatrice and not stare at her if
+the opportunity offered must certainly have the blood of a fish in his
+veins. I will tell you why.
+
+Beatrice was tall, and she was slim, and round, and tempting, with the
+most tantalizing curves ever built to torment a man. Her hair was soft
+and brown, and it waved up from the nape of her neck without those
+short, straggling locks and thin growth at the edge which mar so many
+feminine heads; and the sharp contrast of shimmery brown against ivory
+white was simply irresistible. Had her face been less full of charm,
+Keith might have been content to gaze and gaze at that lovely hair line.
+As it was, his eyes wandered to her brows, also distinctly marked, as
+though outlined first with a pencil in the fingers of an artist who
+understood. And there were her lashes, dark and long, and curled up at
+the ends; and her cheek, with its changing, come-and-go coloring; her
+mouth, with its upper lip creased deeply in the middle--so deeply that a
+bit more would have been a defect--and with an odd little dimple at one
+corner; luckily, it was on the side toward him, so that he might look
+at it all he wanted to for once; for it was always there, only growing
+deeper and wickeder when she spoke or laughed. He could not see her
+eyes, for they were turned away, but he knew quite well the color; he
+had settled that point when he looked up from coiling his rope the day
+she came. They were big, baffling, blue-brown eyes, the like of which he
+had never seen before in his life--and he had thought he had seen
+every color and every shade under the sun. Thinking of them and their
+wonderful deeps and shadows, he got hungry for a sight of them. And
+suddenly she turned to ask a question, and found him staring at her, and
+surprised a look in his eyes he did not know was there.
+
+For ten pulse-beats they stared, and the cheeks of Beatrice grew red as
+healthy young blood could paint them; Keith's were the same, only that
+his blood showed darkly through the tan. What question had been on her
+tongue she forgot to ask. Indeed, for the time, I think she forgot
+the whole English language, and every other--but the strange, wordless
+language of Keith's clear eyes.
+
+And then it was gone, and Keith was looking away, and chewing a
+corner of his lip till it hurt. His horse backed restlessly from the
+tight-gripped rein, and Keith was guilty of kicking him with his spur,
+which did not better matters. Redcloud snorted and shook his outraged
+head, and Keith came to himself and eased the rein, and spoke
+remorseful, soothing words that somehow clung long in the memory of
+Beatrice.
+
+Just after that Dick galloped up, his elbows flapping like the wings of
+a frightened hen.
+
+"Well, I suppose you could run a cow outfit all by yourself, with the
+knowledge you've got from Keith," he greeted, and two people became even
+more embarrassed than before. If Dick noticed anything, he must have
+been a wise young man, for he gave no sign.
+
+But Beatrice had not queened it in her set, three seasons, for nothing,
+even if she was capable of being confused by a sweet, new language in a
+man's eyes. She answered Dick quietly.
+
+"I've been so busy watching it all that I haven't had time to ask many
+questions, as Mr. Cameron can testify. It's like a game, and it's very
+fascinating--and dusty. I wonder if I might ride in among them, Dick?"
+
+"Better not, sis. It isn't as much fun as it looks, and you can see more
+out here. There comes milord; he must have changed his mind about the
+letter."
+
+Beatrice did not look around. To see her, you would swear she had set
+herself the task of making an accurate count of noses in that seething
+mass of raw beef below her. After a minute she ventured to glance
+furtively at Keith, and, finding his eyes turned her way, blushed again
+and called herself an idiot. After that, she straightened in the saddle,
+and became the self-poised Miss Lansell, of New York.
+
+Keith rode away to the far side of the herd, out of temptation; queer
+a man never runs from a woman until it is too late to be a particle of
+use. Keith simply changed his point of view, and watched his Heart's
+Desire from afar.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5. The Search for Dorman.
+
+
+"Oh, I say," began Sir Redmond, an hour after, when he happened to stand
+close to Beatrice for a few minutes, "where is Dorman? I fancied you
+brought him along."
+
+"We didn't," Beatrice told him. "He only rode as far as the gate, where
+Dick left him, and started him back to the house."
+
+"Mary told me he came along. She and your mother were congratulating
+each other upon a quiet half-day, with you and Dorman off the place
+together. I'll wager their felicitations fell rather flat."
+
+Beatrice laughed. "Very likely. I know they were mourning because their
+lace-making had been neglected lately. What with that trip to Lost
+Canyon to-morrow, and to the mountains Friday, I'm afraid the lace will
+continue to suffer. What do you think of a round-up, Sir Redmond?"
+
+"It's deuced nasty," said he. "Such a lot of dust and noise. I fancy the
+workmen don't find it pleasant."
+
+"Yes, they do; they like it," she declared. "Dick says a cowboy is never
+satisfied off the range. And you mustn't call them workmen, Sir Redmond.
+They'd resent it, if they knew. They're cowboys, and proud of it. They
+seem rather a pleasant lot of fellows, on the whole. I have been talking
+to one or two."
+
+"Well, we're all through here," Dick announced, riding up. "I'm going
+to ride around by Keith's place, to see a horse I'm thinking of buying.
+Want to go along, Trix? Or are you tired?"
+
+"I'm never tired," averred his sister, readjusting a hat-pin and
+gathering up her reins. "I always want to go everywhere that you'll take
+me, Dick. Consider that point settled for the summer. Are you coming,
+Sir Redmond?"
+
+"I think not, thank you," he said, not quite risen above his rebuff of
+the morning. "I told Mary I would be back for lunch."
+
+"I was wiser; I refused even to venture an opinion as to when I should
+be back. Well, 'so-long'!"
+
+"You're learning the lingo pretty fast, Trix," Dick chuckled, when they
+were well away from Sir Redmond. "Milord almost fell out of the saddle
+when you fired that at him. Where did you pick it up?"
+
+"I've heard you say it a dozen times since I came. And I don't care if
+he is shocked--I wanted him to be. He needn't be such a perfect bear;
+and I know mama and Miss Hayes don't expect him to lunch, without us. He
+just did it to be spiteful."
+
+"Jerusalem, Trix! A little while ago you said he was a dear! You
+shouldn't snub him, if you want him to be nice to you."
+
+"I don't want him to be nice," flared Beatrice. "I don't care how
+he acts. Only, I must say, ill humor doesn't become him. Not that it
+matters, however."
+
+"Well, I guess we can get along without him, if he won't honor us with
+his company. Here comes Keith. Brace up, sis, and be pleasant."
+
+Beatrice glanced casually at the galloping figure of Dick's neighbor,
+and frowned.
+
+"You mustn't flirt with Keith," Dick admonished gravely. "He's a good
+fellow, and as square a man as I know; but you ought to know he's got
+the reputation of being a hard man to know. Lots of girls have tried
+to flirt and make a fool of him, and wound up with their feelings hurt
+worse than his were."
+
+"Is that a dare?" Beatrice threw up her chin with a motion Dick knew of
+old.
+
+"Not on your life! You better leave him alone; one or the other of you
+would get the worst of it, and I'd hate to see either of you feeling
+bad. As I said before, he's a bad man to fool with."
+
+"I don't consider him particularly dangerous--or interesting. He's not
+half as nice as Sir Redmond." Beatrice spoke as though she meant what
+she said, and Dick had no chance to argue the point, for Keith pulled up
+beside them at that moment.
+
+Beatrice seemed inclined to silence, and paid more attention to the
+landscape than she did to the conversation, which was mostly about range
+conditions, and the scanty water supply, and the drought.
+
+She was politely interested in Keith's ranch, and if she clung
+persistently to her society manner, why, her society manner was very
+pleasing, if somewhat unsatisfying to a fellow fairly drunk with her
+winsomeness. Keith showed her where she might look straight up the
+coulee to her brother's ranch, two miles away, and when she wished
+she might see what they were doing up there, he went in and got his
+field-glass. She thanked him prettily, and impersonally, and focused the
+glass upon Dick's house--which gave Keith another chance to look at her
+without being caught in the act.
+
+"How plain everything is! I can see mama, out on the porch, and Miss
+Hayes." She could also see Sir Redmond, who had just ridden up, and was
+talking to the ladies, but she did not think it necessary to mention
+him, for some reason; she kept her eyes to the glass, however, and
+appeared much absorbed. Dick rolled himself a cigarette and watched the
+two, and there was a twinkle in his eyes.
+
+"I wonder--Dick, I do think--I'm afraid--" Beatrice hadn't her society
+manner now; she was her unaffected, girlish self; and she was growing
+excited.
+
+"What's the matter?" Dick got up, and came and stood at her elbow.
+
+"They're acting queerly. The maids are running about, and the cook is
+out, waving a large spoon, and mama has her arm around Miss Hayes, and
+Sir Redmond."
+
+"Let's see." Dick took the glass and raised it to his eyes for a minute.
+"That's right," he said. "They're making medicine over something. See
+what you make of it, Keith."
+
+Keith took the glass and looked through it. It was like a moving
+picture; one could see, but one wanted the interpretation of sound.
+
+"We'd better ride over," he said quietly. "Don't worry, Miss Lansell;
+it probably isn't anything serious. We can take the short cut up the
+coulee, and find out." He put the glass into its leathern case and
+started to the gate, where the horses were standing. He did not tell
+Beatrice that Miss Hayes had just been carried into the house in
+a faint, or that her mother was behaving in an undignified fashion
+strongly suggesting hysterics. But Dick knew, from the look on his face,
+that it was serious. He hurried before them with long strides, leaving
+Beatrice, for the second time that morning, to the care of his neighbor.
+
+So it was Keith who held his hand down for the delicious pressure of
+her foot, and arranged her habit with painstaking care, considering the
+hurry they were in. Dick was in the saddle, and gone, before Keith had
+finished, and Keith was not a slow young man, as a rule. They ran the
+two miles without a break, except twice, where there were gates to
+close. Dick, speeding a furlong before, had obligingly left them open;
+and a stockman is hard pressed indeed--or very drunk--when he fails to
+close his gates behind him. It is an unwritten law which becomes second
+nature.
+
+Almost within sound of the place, Dick raced back and met them, and his
+face was white.
+
+"It's Dorman!" he cried. "He's lost. They haven't seen him since we
+left. You know, Trix, he was standing at the gate."
+
+Beatrice went white as Dick; whiter, for she was untanned. An
+overwhelming sense of blame squeezed her heart tight. Keith, seeing her
+shoulders droop limply, reined close, to catch her in his arms if there
+was the slightest excuse. However, Beatrice was a healthy young woman,
+with splendid command of her nerves, and she had no intention of
+fainting. The sickening weakness passed in a moment.
+
+"It's my fault," she said, speaking rapidly, her eyes seeking Dick's for
+comfort. "I said 'yes' to everything he asked me, because I was thinking
+of something else, and not paying attention. He was going to buy your
+horse, Mr. Cameron, and now he's lost!"
+
+This, though effective, was not particularly illuminating. Dick wanted
+details, and he got them--for Beatrice, having remorse to stir the dregs
+of memory, repeated nearly everything Dorman had said, even telling
+how the big, high pony put up his front hand, and he shaked it, and how
+Dorman truly needed some little wheels on his feet.
+
+"Poor little devil," Keith muttered, with wet eyes.
+
+"He--he said you lived over there," Beatrice finished, pointing, as
+Dorman had pointed--which was not toward the "Cross" ranch at all, but
+straight toward the river.
+
+Keith wheeled Redcloud; there was no need to hear more. He took the hill
+at a pace which would have killed any horse but one bred to race over
+this rough country. Near the top, the forced breathing of another horse
+at his heels made him look behind. It was Beatrice following, her eyes
+like black stars. I do not know if Keith was astonished, but I do know
+that he was pleased.
+
+"Where's Dick?" was all he said then.
+
+"Dick's going to meet the men--the cowboys. Sir Redmond went after them,
+when they found Dorman wasn't anywhere about the place."
+
+Keith nodded understandingly, and slowed to let her come alongside.
+
+"It's no use riding in bunches," he remarked, after a little. "On circle
+we always go in pairs. We'll find him, all right."
+
+"We must," said Beatrice, simply, and shaded her eyes with her hand. For
+they had reached the top, and the prairie land lay all about them and
+below, lazily asleep in the sunshine.
+
+Keith halted and reached for his glass. "It's lucky I brought it along,"
+he said. "I wasn't thinking, at the time; I just slung it over my
+shoulder from habit."
+
+"It's a good habit, I think," she answered, trying to smile; but her
+lips would only quiver, for the thought of her blame tortured her. "Can
+you see--anything?" she ventured wistfully.
+
+Keith shook his head, and continued his search. "There are so many
+little washouts and coulees, down there, you know. That's the trouble
+with a glass--it looks only on a level. But we'll find him. Don't you
+worry about that. He couldn't go far."
+
+"There isn't any real danger, is there?"
+
+"Oh, no," Keith said. "Except--" He bit his lip angrily.
+
+"Except what?" she demanded. "I'm not silly, Mr. Cameron--tell me."
+
+Keith took the glass from his eyes, looked at her, and paid her the
+compliment of deciding to tell her, just as if she were a man.
+
+"Nothing, only--he might run across a snake," he said. "Rattlers."
+
+Beatrice drew her breath hard, but she was plucky. Keith thought he
+had never seen a pluckier girl, and the West can rightfully boast brave
+women.
+
+She touched Rex with the whip. "Come," she commanded. "We must not stand
+here. It has been more than three hours."
+
+Keith put away the glass, and shot ahead to guide her.
+
+"We must have missed him, somewhere." The eyes of Beatrice were heavy
+with the weariness born of anxiety and suspense. They stood at the very
+edge of the steep bluff which rimmed the river. "You don't think he
+could have--" Her eyes, shuddering down at the mocking, blue-gray
+ripples, finished the thought.
+
+"He couldn't have got this far," said Keith. "His legs would give out,
+climbing up and down. We'll go back by a little different way, and
+look."
+
+"There's something moving, off there." Beatrice pointed with her whip.
+
+"That's a coyote," Keith told her; and then, seeing the look on her
+face: "They won't hurt any one. They're the rankest cowards on the
+range."
+
+"But the snakes--"
+
+"Oh, well, he might wander around for a week, and not run across one. We
+won't borrow trouble, anyway."
+
+"No," she agreed languidly. The sun was hot, and she had not had
+anything to eat since early breakfast, and the river mocked her parched
+throat with its cool glimmer below. She looked down at it wistfully,
+and Keith, watchful of every passing change in her face, led her back
+to where a cold, little spring crept from beneath a rock; there, lifting
+her down, he taught her how to drink from her hand.
+
+For himself, he threw himself down, pushed back his hat, and drank
+long and leisurely. A brown lock of hair, clinging softly together with
+moisture, fell from his forehead and trailed in the clear water, and
+Beatrice felt oddly tempted to push it back where it belonged. Standing
+quietly watching his picturesque figure, she forgot, for the moment,
+that a little boy was lost among these peaceful, sunbathed hills; she
+remembered only the man at her feet, drinking long, satisfying drafts,
+while the lock of hair floated in the spring.
+
+"Now we'll go on." He stood up and pushed back the wet lock, which
+trickled a tiny stream down his cheek, and settled his gray hat in
+place.
+
+Again that day he felt her foot in his palm, and the touch went over him
+in thrills. She was tired, he knew; her foot pressed heavier than it had
+before. He would have liked to take her in his arms and lift her
+bodily into the saddle, but he hardly dared think of such a blissful
+proceeding.
+
+He set the pace slower, however, and avoided the steepest places, and he
+halted often on the higher ground, to scan sharply the coulees. And so
+they searched, these two, together, and grew to know each other better
+than in a month of casual meetings. And the grass nodded, and the winds
+laughed, and the stern hills looked on, quizzically silent. If they knew
+aught of a small boy with a wealth of yellow curls and white collar,
+they gave no sign, and the two rode on, always seeking hopefully.
+
+A snake buzzed sharply on a gravelly slope, and Keith, sending Beatrice
+back a safe distance, took down his rope and gave battle, beating the
+sinister, gray-spotted coil with the loop until it straightened and
+was still. He dismounted then, and pinched off the rattles--nine,
+there were, and a "button"--and gave them to Beatrice, who handled them
+gingerly, and begged Keith to carry them for her. He slipped them into
+his pocket, and they went on, saying little.
+
+Back near the ranch they met Dick and Sir Redmond. They exchanged sharp
+looks, and Dick shook his head.
+
+"We haven't found him--yet. The boys are riding circle around the ranch;
+they're bound to find him, some of them, if we don't."
+
+"You had better go home," Sir Redmond told her, with a note of authority
+in his voice which set Keith's teeth on edge. "You look done to death;
+this is men's work."
+
+Beatrice bit her lip, and barely glanced at him. "I'll go--when Dorman
+is found. What shall we do now, Dick?"
+
+"Go down to the house and get some hot coffee, you two. We all snatched
+a bite to eat, and you need it. After that, you can look along the south
+side of the coulee, if you like."
+
+Beatrice obediently turned Rex toward home, and Keith followed. The
+ranch seemed very still and lonesome. Some chickens were rolling in the
+dust by the gate, and scattered, cackling indignantly, when they rode
+up. Off to the left a colt whinnied wistfully in a corral. Beatrice,
+riding listlessly to the house, stopped her horse with a jerk.
+
+"I heard--where is he?"
+
+Keith stopped Redcloud, and listened. Came a thumping noise, and a wail,
+not loud, but unmistakable.
+
+"Aunt-ie!"
+
+Beatrice was on the ground as soon as Keith, and together they ran to
+the place--the bunk-house. The thumping continued vigorously; evidently
+a small boy was kicking, with all his might, upon a closed door; it was
+not a new sound to the ears of Beatrice, since the arrival in America
+of her young nephew. Keith flung the door wide open, upsetting the small
+boy, who howled.
+
+Beatrice swooped down upon him and gathered him so close she came near
+choking him. "You darling. Oh, Dorman!"
+
+Dorman squirmed away from her. "I los' one shiny penny, Be'trice--and I
+couldn't open de door. Help me find my shiny penny."
+
+Keith picked him up and set him upon one square shoulder. "We'll take
+you up to your auntie, first thing, young man."
+
+"I want my one shiny penny. I want it!" Dorman showed symptoms of
+howling again.
+
+"We'll come back and find it. Your auntie wants you now, and grandmama."
+
+Beatrice, following after, was treated to a rather unusual spectacle;
+that of a tall, sun-browned fellow, with fringed chaps and brightly
+gleaming spurs, racing down the path; upon his shoulder, the wriggling
+form of an extremely disreputable small boy, with cobwebs in his curls,
+and his once white collar a dirty rag streaming out behind.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 6. Mrs. Lansell's Lecture.
+
+
+When the excitement had somewhat abated, and Miss Hayes was convinced
+that her idol was really there, safe, and with his usual healthy
+appetite, and when a messenger had been started out to recall the
+searchers, Dorman was placed upon a chair before a select and attentive
+audience, and invited to explain, which he did.
+
+He had decided to borrow some little wheels from the bunkhouse, so he
+could ride his big, high pony home. Mr. Cameron had little wheels on
+his feet, and so did Uncle Dick, and all the mens. (The audience gravely
+nodded assent.) Well, and the knob wasn't too high when he went in, but
+when he tried to open the door to go out, it was away up there! (Dorman
+measured with his arm.) And he fell down, and all his shiny pennies
+rolled and rolled. And he looked and looked where they rolled, and when
+he counted, one was gone. So he looked and looked for the one shiny
+penny till he was tired to death. And so he climbed up high, into a
+funny bed on a shelf, and rested. And when he was rested he couldn't
+open the door, and he kicked and kicked, and then Be'trice came, and Mr.
+Cam'ron.
+
+"And you said you'd help me find my one penny," he reminded Keith,
+blinking solemnly at him from the chair. "And I want to shake hands wis
+your big, high pony. I'm going to buy him wis my six pennies. Be'trice
+said I could."
+
+Beatrice blushed, and Keith forgot where he was, for a minute, looking
+at her.
+
+"Come and find my one shiny penny," Dorman commanded, climbing down.
+"And I want Be'trice to come. Be'trice can always find things."
+
+"Beatrice cannot go," said his grandmother, who didn't much like the
+way Keith hovered near Beatrice, nor the look in his eyes. "Beatrice is
+tired."
+
+"I want Be'trice!" Dorman set up his everyday howl, which started the
+dogs barking outside. His guardian angel attempted to soothe him, but he
+would have none of her; he only howled the louder, and kicked.
+
+"There, there, honey, I'll go. Where's your hat?"
+
+"Beatrice, you had better stay in the house; you have done quite enough
+for one day." The tone of the mother suggested things.
+
+"It is imperative," said Beatrice, "for the peace and the well-being of
+this household, that Dorman find his penny without delay." When
+Beatrice adopted that lofty tone her mother was in the habit of saying
+nothing--and biding her time. Beatrice was so apt, if mere loftiness did
+not carry the day, to go a step further and flatly refuse to obey. Mrs.
+Lansell preferred to yield, rather than be openly defied.
+
+So the three went off to find the shiny penny--and in exactly
+thirty-five minutes they found it. I will not say that they could not
+have found it sooner, but, at any rate, they didn't, and they reached
+the house about two minutes behind Dick and Sir Redmond, which did not
+improve Sir Redmond's temper to speak of.
+
+After that, Keith did not need much urging from Dick to spend the rest
+of the afternoon at the "Pool" ranch. When he wanted to, Keith could be
+very nice indeed to people; he went a long way, that afternoon, toward
+making a friend of Miss Hayes; but Mrs. Lansell, who was one of those
+women who adhere to the theory of First Impressions, in capitals,
+continued to regard him as an incipient outlaw, who would, in time and
+under favorable conditions, reveal his true character, and vindicate her
+keen insight into human nature. There was one thing which Mrs. Lansell
+never forgave Keith Cameron, and that was the ruin of her watch, which
+refused to run while she was in Montana.
+
+That night, when Beatrice was just snuggling down into the delicious
+coolness of her pillow, she heard someone rap softly, but none the less
+imperatively, on her door. She opened one eye stealthily, to see her
+mother's pudgy form outlined in the feeble moonlight.
+
+"Beatrice, are you asleep?"
+
+Beatrice did not say yes, but she let her breath out carefully in a
+slumbrous sigh. It certainly sounded as if she were asleep.
+
+"Be-atrice!" The tone, though guarded, was insistent.
+
+The head of Beatrice moved slightly, and settled back into its little
+nest, for all the world like a dreaming, innocent baby.
+
+If she had not been the mother of Beatrice, Mrs. Lansell would probably
+have gone back to her room, and continued to bide her time; but the
+mother of Beatrice had learned a few things about the ways of a wilful
+girl. She went in, and closed the door carefully behind her. She did not
+wish to keep the whole house awake. Then she went straight to the bed,
+laid hand upon a white shoulder that gleamed in the moonlight, and gave
+a shake.
+
+"Beatrice, I want you to answer me when I speak."
+
+"M-m--did you--m-m--speak, mama?" Beatrice opened her eyes and closed
+them, opened them again for a minute longer, yawned daintily, and by
+these signs and tokens wandered back from dreamland obediently.
+
+Her mother sat down upon the edge of the bed, and the bed creaked. Also,
+Beatrice groaned inwardly; the time of reckoning was verily drawing
+near. She promptly closed her eyes again, and gave a sleepy sigh.
+
+"Beatrice, did you refuse Sir Redmond again?"
+
+"M-m--were you speaking--mama?"
+
+Mrs. Lansell, endeavoring to keep her temper, repeated the question.
+
+Beatrice began to feel that she was an abused girl. She lifted herself
+to her elbow, and thumped the pillow spitefully.
+
+"Again? Dear me, mama! I've never refused him once!"
+
+"You haven't accepted him once, either," her mother retorted; and
+Beatrice lay down again.
+
+"I do wish, Beatrice, you would look at the matter in a sensible light
+I'm sure I never would ask you to marry a man you could not care for.
+But Sir Redmond is young, and good-looking, and has birth and breeding,
+and money--no one can accuse him of being a fortune-hunter, I'm sure.
+I was asking Richard to-day, and he says Sir Redmond holds a large
+interest in the Northern Pool, and other English investors pay him a
+salary, besides, to look after their interests. I wouldn't be surprised
+if the holdings of both of you would be sufficient to control the
+business."
+
+Beatrice, not caring anything for business anyway, said nothing.
+
+"Any one can see the man's crazy for you. His sister says he never cared
+for a woman before in his life."
+
+"Of course," put in Beatrice sarcastically. "His sister followed him
+down to South Africa, and all around, and is in a position to know."
+
+"Any one can see he isn't a lady's man."
+
+"No--" Beatrice smiled reminiscently; "he certainly isn't."
+
+"And so he's in deadly earnest. And I'm positive he will make you a
+model husband."
+
+"Only think of having to live, all one's life, with a model husband!"
+shuddered Beatrice hypocritically.
+
+"Be-atrice! And then, it's something to marry a title."
+
+"That's the worst of it," remarked Beatrice.
+
+"Any other girl in America would jump at the chance. I do believe,
+Beatrice, you are hanging back just to be aggravating. And there's
+another thing, Beatrice. I don't approve of the way this Keith Cameron
+hangs around you."
+
+"He doesn't!" denied Beatrice, in an altogether different tone. "Why,
+mama!"
+
+"I don't approve of flirting, Beatrice, and you know it. The way
+you gadded around over the hills with him--a perfect stranger--was
+disgraceful; perfectly disgraceful. You don't know any thing about the
+fellow, whether he's a fit companion or not--a wild, uncouth cowboy--"
+
+"He graduated from Yale, a year after Dick. And he was halfback, too."
+
+"That doesn't signify," said her mother, "a particle. I know Miss Hayes
+was dreadfully shocked to see you come riding up with him, and Sir
+Redmond forced to go with Richard, or ride alone."
+
+"Dick is good company," said Beatrice. "And it was his own fault.
+I asked him to go with us, when Dick and I left the cattle, and he
+wouldn't. Dick will tell you the same. And after that I did not see
+him until just before we--I came home, Really, mama, I can't have a
+leading-string on Sir Redmond. If he refuses to come with me, I can
+hardly insist."
+
+"Well, you must have done something. You said something, or did
+something, to make him very angry. He has not been himself all day. What
+did you say?"
+
+"Dear me, mama, I am not responsible for all Sir Redmond's ill-humor."
+
+"I did not ask you that, Beatrice."
+
+Beatrice thumped her pillow again. "I don't remember anything very
+dreadful, mama. I--I think he has indigestion."
+
+"Be-atrice! I do wish you would try to conquer that habit of flippancy.
+It is not ladylike. And I warn you, Sir Redmond is not the man to dangle
+after you forever. He will lose patience, and go back to England without
+you--and serve you right! I am only talking for your own good, Beatrice.
+I am not at all sure that you want him to leave you alone."
+
+Beatrice was not at all sure, either. She lay still, and wished her
+mother would stop talking for her good. Talking for her good had meant,
+as far back as Beatrice could remember, saying disagreeable things in a
+disagreeable manner.
+
+"And remember, Beatrice, I want this flirting stopped."
+
+"Flirting, mama?" To hear the girl, you would think she had never heard
+the word before.
+
+"That's what I said, Beatrice. I shall speak to Richard in the morning
+about this fellow Cameron. He must put a stop to his being here
+two-thirds of the time. It is unendurable."
+
+"He and Dick are chums, mama, and have been for years. And to-morrow we
+are going to Lost Canyon, you know, and Mr. Cameron is to go along. And
+there are several other trips, mama, to which he is already invited.
+Dick cannot recall those invitations."
+
+"Well, it must end there. Richard must do something. I cannot see
+what he finds about the fellow to like--or you, either, Beatrice. Just
+because he rides like a--a wild Indian, and has a certain daredevil
+way--"
+
+"I never said I liked him, mama," Beatrice protested, somewhat hastily.
+"I--of course, I try to treat him well--"
+
+"I should say you did!" exploded her mother angrily. "You would be
+much better employed in trying to treat Sir Redmond half as well. It is
+positively disgraceful, the way you behave toward him--as fine a man as
+I ever met in my life. I warn you, Beatrice, you must have more regard
+for propriety, or I shall take you back to New York at once. I certainly
+shall."
+
+With that threat, which she shrewdly guessed would go far toward
+bringing this wayward girl to time, Mrs. Lansell got up off the bed,
+which creaked its relief, and groped her way to her own room.
+
+The pillow of Beatrice received considerable thumping during the next
+hour--a great deal more, in fact, than it needed. Two thoughts troubled
+her more than she liked. What if her mother was right, and Sir Redmond
+lost patience with her and went home? That possibility was unpleasant,
+to say the least. Again, would he give her up altogether if she showed
+Dick she was not afraid of Keith Cameron, for all his good looks, and at
+the same time taught that young man a much-needed lesson? The way he had
+stared at her was nothing less than a challenge and Beatrice was sorely
+tempted.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 7. Beatrice's Wild Ride.
+
+
+"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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 8. Dorman Plays Cupid.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 9. What It Meant to Keith.
+
+
+"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.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 10. Pine Ridge Range Ablaze.
+
+
+At dusk that night a glow was in the southern sky, and the wind carried
+the pungent odor of burning grass. Dick went out on the porch after
+dinner, and sniffed the air uneasily.
+
+"I don't much like the look of it," he admitted to Sir Redmond. "It
+smells pretty strong, to be across the river. I sent a couple of the
+boys out to look a while ago. If it's this side of the river we'll have
+to get a move on."
+
+"It will be the range land, I take it, if it's on this side," Sir
+Redmond remarked.
+
+Just then a man thundered through the lane and up to the very steps of
+the porch, and when he stopped the horse he was riding leaned forward
+and his legs shook with exhaustion.
+
+"The Pine Ridge Range is afire, Mr. Lansell," the man announced quietly.
+
+Dick took a long pull at his cigar and threw it away. "Have the boys
+throw some barrels and sacks into a wagon--and git!" He went inside and
+grabbed his hat, and when he turned Sir Redmond was at his elbow.
+
+"I'm going, too, Dick," cried Beatrice, who always seemed to hear
+anything that promised excitement. "I never saw a prairie-fire in my
+life."
+
+"It's ten miles off," said Dick shortly, taking the steps at a jump.
+
+"I don't care if it's twenty--I'm going. Sir Redmond, wait for me!"
+
+"Be-atrice!" cried her mother detainingly; but Beatrice was gone to get
+ready. A quick job she made of it; she threw a dark skirt over her
+thin, white one, slipped into the nearest jacket, snatched her
+riding-gauntlets off a chair where she had thrown them, and then
+couldn't find her hat. That, however, did not trouble her. Down in the
+hall she appropriated one of Dick's, off the hall tree, and announced
+herself ready. Sir Redmond laughed, caught her hand, and they raced
+together down to the stables before her mother had fully grasped the
+situation.
+
+"Isn't Rex saddled, Dick?"
+
+Dick, his foot in the stirrup, stopped long enough to glance over his
+shoulder at her. "You ready so soon? Jim, saddle Rex for Miss Lansell."
+He swung up into the saddle.
+
+"Aren't you going to wait, Dick?"
+
+"Can't. Milord can bring you." And Dick was away on the run.
+
+Men were hurrying here and there, every move counting something done.
+While she stood there a wagon rattled out from the shadow of a haystack,
+with empty water-barrels dancing a mad jig behind the high seat, where
+the driver perched with feet braced and a whip in his hand. After him
+dashed four or five riders, silent and businesslike. In a moment they
+were mere fantastic shadows galloping up the hill through the smothery
+gloom.
+
+Then came Jim, leading Rex and a horse for himself; Sir Redmond had
+saddled his gray and was waiting. Beatrice sprang into the saddle and
+took the lead, with nerves a-tingle. The wind that rushed against her
+face was hot and reeking with smoke. Her nostrils drank greedily the
+tang it carried.
+
+"You gipsy!" cried Sir Redmond, peering at her through the murky gloom.
+
+"This--is living!" she laughed, and urged Rex faster.
+
+So they raced recklessly over the hills, toward where the night was
+aglow. Before them the wagon pounded over untrailed prairie sod, with
+shadowy figures fleeing always before.
+
+Here, wild cattle rushed off at either side, to stop and eye them
+curiously as they whirled past. There, a coyote, squatting unseen upon
+a distant pinnacle, howled, long-drawn and quavering, his weird protest
+against the solitudes in which he wandered.
+
+The dusk deepened to dark, and they could no longer see the racing
+shadows. The rattle of the wagon came mysteriously back to them through
+the black.
+
+Once Rex stumbled over a rock and came near falling, but Beatrice only
+laughed and urged him on, unheeding Sir Redmond's call to ride slower.
+
+They splashed through a shallow creek, and came upon the wagon, halted
+that the cowboys might fill the barrels with water. Then they passed by,
+and when they heard them following the wagon no longer rattled glibly
+along, but chuckled heavily under its load.
+
+The dull, red glow brightened to orange. Then, breasting at last a long
+hill, they came to the top, and Beatrice caught her breath at what lay
+below.
+
+A jagged line of leaping flame cut clean through the dark of the coulee.
+The smoke piled rosily above and before, and the sullen roar of it
+clutched the senses--challenging, sinister. Creeping stealthily,
+relentlessly, here a thin gash of yellow hugging close to the earth,
+there a bold, bright wall of fire, it swept the coulee from rim to rim.
+
+"The wind is carrying it from us," Sir Redmond was saying in her ear.
+"Are you afraid to stop here alone? I ought to go down and lend a hand."
+
+Beatrice drew a long gasp. "Oh, no, I'm not afraid. Go; there is Dick,
+down there."
+
+"You're sure you won't mind?" He hesitated, dreading to leave her.
+
+"No, no! Go on--they need you."
+
+Sir Redmond turned and rode down the ridge toward the flames. His
+straight figure was silhouetted sharply against the glow.
+
+Beatrice slipped off her horse and sat down upon a rock, dead to
+everything but the fiendish beauty of the scene spread out below her.
+Millions of sparks danced in and out among the smoke wreaths which
+curled upward--now black, now red, now a dainty rose. Off to the left a
+coyote yapped shrilly, ending with his mournful howl.
+
+Beatrice shivered from sheer ecstasy. This was a world she had never
+before seen--a world of hot, smoke-sodden wind, of dead-black shadows
+and flame-bright light; of roar and hoarse bellowing and sharp crackles;
+of calm, star-sprinkled sky above--and in the distance the uncanny
+howling of a coyote.
+
+Time had no reckoning there. She saw men running to and fro in the
+glare, disappearing in a downward swirl of smoke, coming to view again
+in the open beyond. Always their arms waved rhythmically downward,
+beating the ragged line of yellow with water-soaked sacks. The trail
+they left was a wavering, smoke-traced rim of sullen black, where before
+had been gay, dancing, orange light. In places the smolder fanned to new
+life behind them and licked greedily at the ripe grass like hungry, red
+tongues. One of these Beatrice watched curiously. It crept slyly into an
+unburned hollow, and the wind, veering suddenly, pushed it out of sight
+from the fighters and sent it racing merrily to the south. The main line
+of fire beat doggedly up against the wind that a minute before had been
+friendly, and fought bravely two foes instead of one. It dodged, ducked,
+and leaped high, and the men beat upon it mercilessly.
+
+But the little, new flame broadened and stood on tiptoes defiantly,
+proud of the wide, black trail that kept stretching away behind it; and
+Beatrice watched it, fascinated by its miraculous growth. It began
+to crackle and send up smoke wreaths of its own, with sparks dancing
+through; then its voice deepened and coarsened, till it roared quite
+like its mother around the hill.
+
+The smoke from the larger fire rolled back with the wind, and Beatrice
+felt her eyes sting. Flakes of blackened grass and ashes rained upon
+the hilltop, and Rex moved uneasily and pawed at the dry sod. To him a
+prairie-fire was not beautiful--it was an enemy to run from. He twitched
+his reins from Beatrice's heedless fingers and decamped toward home,
+paying no attention whatever to the command of his mistress to stop.
+
+Still Beatrice sat and watched the new fire, and was glad she chanced to
+be upon the south end of a sharp-nosed hill, so that she could see
+both ways. The blaze dove into a deep hollow, climbed the slope beyond,
+leaped exultantly and bellowed its challenge. And, of a sudden, dark
+forms sprang upon it and beat it cruelly, and it went black where they
+struck, and only thin streamers of smoke told where it had been. Still
+they beat, and struck, and struck again, till the fire died ingloriously
+and the hillside to the south lay dark and still, as it had been at the
+beginning.
+
+Beatrice wondered who had done it. Then she came back to her
+surroundings and realized that Rex had left her, and she was alone. She
+shivered--this time not in ecstasy, but partly from loneliness--and
+went down the hill toward where Dick and Sir Redmond and the others were
+fighting steadily the larger fire, unconscious of the younger, new one
+that had stolen away from them and was beaten to death around the hill.
+
+Once in the coulee, she was compelled to take to the burnt ground, which
+crisped hotly under her feet and sent up a rank, suffocating smell of
+burned grass into her nostrils. The whole country was alight, and down
+there the world seemed on fire. At times the smoke swooped blindingly,
+and half strangled her. Her skirts, in passing, swept the black ashes
+from grass roots which showed red in the night.
+
+Picking her way carefully around the spots that glowed warningly,
+shielding her face as well as she could from the smoke, she kept on
+until she was close upon the fighters. Dick and Sir Redmond were working
+side by side, the sacks they held rising and falling with the regularity
+of a machine for minutes at a time. A group of strange horsemen galloped
+up from the way she had come, followed by a wagon of water-barrels,
+careering recklessly over the uneven ground. The horsemen stopped just
+inside the burned rim, the horses sidestepping gingerly upon the hot
+turf.
+
+"I guess you want some help here. Where shall we start in?" Beatrice
+recognized the voice. It was Keith Cameron.
+
+"Sure, we do!" Dick answered, gratefully. "Start in any old place."
+
+"I'm not sure we want your help," spoke the angry voice of Sir Redmond.
+"I take it you've already done a devilish sight too much."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" Keith demanded; and then, by the silence, it
+seemed that every one knew. Beatrice caught her breath. Was this one of
+the ways Dick meant that Keith could fight?
+
+"Climb down, boys, and get busy," Keith called to his men, after a few
+breaths. "This is for Dick. Wait a minute! Pete, drive the wagon ahead,
+there. I guess we'd better begin on the other end and work this way.
+Come on--there's too much hot air here." They clattered on across the
+coulee, kicking hot ashes up for the wind to seize upon. Beatrice went
+slowly up to Dick, feeling all at once very tired and out of heart with
+it all.
+
+"Dick," she called, in an anxious little voice, "Rex has run away from
+me. What shall I do?"
+
+Dick straightened stiffly, his hands upon his aching loins, and peered
+through the smoke at her.
+
+"I guess the only thing to do, then, is to get into the wagon over
+there. You can drive, Trix, if you want to, and that will give us
+another man here. I was just going to have some one take you home;
+now--the Lord only knows!--you're liable to have to stay till morning.
+Rex will go home, all right; you needn't worry about him."
+
+He bent to the work again, and she could hear the wet sack thud, thud
+upon the ground. Other sacks and blankets went thud, thud, and down here
+at close range the fire was not so beautiful as it had been from the
+hilltop. Down here the glamour was gone. She climbed up to the high
+wagon seat and took the reins from the man, who immediately seized upon
+a sack and went off to the fight. She felt that she was out of touch.
+She was out on the prairie at night, miles away from any house, driving
+a water-wagon for the men to put out a prairie fire. She had driven a
+coaching-party once on a wager; but she had never driven a lumber-wagon
+with barrels of water before. She could not think of any girl she knew
+who had.
+
+It was a new experience, certainly, but she found no pleasure in it; she
+was tired and sleepy, and her eyes and throat smarted cruelly with the
+smoke. She looked back to the hill she had just left, and it seemed
+a long, long time since she sat upon a rock up there and watched the
+little, new fire grow and grow, and the strange shadows spring up from
+nowhere and beat it vindictively till it died.
+
+Again she wondered vaguely who had done it; not Keith Cameron, surely,
+for Sir Redmond had all but accused him openly of setting the range
+afire. Would he stamp out a blaze that was just reaching a size to do
+mischief, if left a little longer? No one would have seen it for hours,
+probably. He would undoubtedly have let it run, unless--But who else
+could have set the fire? Who else would want to see the Pine Ridge
+country black and barren? Dick said Keith Cameron would not sit down and
+take his medicine--perhaps Dick knew he would do this thing.
+
+As the fighters moved on across the coulee she drove the wagon to keep
+pace with them. Often a man would run up to the wagon, climb upon a
+wheel and dip a frayed gunny sack into a barrel, lift it out and run
+with it, all dripping, to the nearest point of the fire. Her part was
+to keep the wagon at the most convenient place. She began to feel the
+importance of her position, and to take pride in being always at the
+right spot. From the calm appreciation of the picturesque side, she
+drifted to the keen interest of the one who battles against heavy odds.
+The wind had veered again, and the flames rushed up the long coulee
+like an express train. But the path it left was growing narrower every
+moment. Keith Cameron was doing grand work with his crew upon the other
+side, and the space between them was shortening perceptibly.
+
+Beatrice found herself watching the work of the Cross men. If they were
+doing it for effect, they certainly were acting well their part. She
+wondered what would happen when the two crews met, and the danger was
+over. Would Sir Redmond call Keith Cameron to account for what he had
+done? If he did, what would Keith say? And which side would Dick take?
+Very likely, she thought, he would defend Keith Cameron, and shield him
+if he could.
+
+Beatrice found herself crying quietly, and shivering, though the air was
+sultry with the fire. For the life of her, she could not tell why she
+cried, but she tried to believe it was the smoke in her eyes. Perhaps it
+was.
+
+The sky was growing gray when the two crews met. The orange lights were
+gone, and Dick, with a spiteful flop of the black rag which had been a
+good, new sack, stamped out the last tiny red tongue of the fire. The
+men stood about in awkward silence, panting with heat and weariness. Sir
+Redmond was ostentatiously filling his pipe. Beatrice knew him by his
+straight, soldierly pose. In the drab half-light they were all mere
+black outlines of men, and, for the most part, she could not distinguish
+one from another. Keith Cameron she knew; instinctively by his slim
+height, and by the way he carried his head. Unconsciously, she leaned
+down from the high seat and listened for what would come next.
+
+Keith seemed to be making a cigarette. A match flared and lighted his
+face for an instant, then was pinched out, and he was again only a black
+shape in the half-darkness.
+
+"Well, I'm waiting for what you've got to say, Sir Redmond." His voice
+cut sharply through the silence. If he had known Beatrice was out there
+in the wagon he would have spoken lower, perhaps.
+
+"I fancy I said all that is necessary just now," Sir Redmond answered
+calmly. "You know what I think. From now on I shall act."
+
+"And what are you going to do, then?" Keith's voice was clear and
+unperturbed, as though he asked for the sake of being polite.
+
+"That," retorted Sir Redmond, "is my own affair. However, since the
+matter concerns you rather closely, I will say that when I have the
+evidence I am confident I shall find, I shall seek the proper channels
+for retribution. There are laws in this country, aimed to protect
+a man's property, I take it. I warn you that I shall not spare--the
+guilty."
+
+"Dick, it's up to you next. I want to know where you stand."
+
+"At your back, Keith, right up to the finish. I know you; you fight
+fair."
+
+"All right, then. I didn't think you'd go back on a fellow. And I tell
+you straight up, Sir Redmond Hayes, I'm not out touching matches to
+range land--not if it belonged to the devil himself. I've got some
+feeling for the dumb brutes that would have to suffer. You can get right
+to work hunting evidence, and be damned! You're dead welcome to all you
+can find; and in this part of the country you won't be able to buy much!
+You know very well you deserve to get your rope crossed, or you wouldn't
+be on the lookout for trouble. Come, boys; let's hit the trail. So long,
+Dick!"
+
+Beatrice watched them troop off to their horses, heard them mount and
+go tearing off across the burned coulee bottom toward home. Dick came
+slowly over to her.
+
+"I expect you're good and tired, sis. You've made a hand, all right, and
+helped us a whole lot, I can tell you. I'll drive now, and we'll hit the
+high places."
+
+Beatrice smiled wanly. Not one of her Eastern acquaintances would
+have recognized Beatrice Lansell, the society beauty, in this
+remarkable-looking young woman, attired in a most haphazard fashion,
+with a face grimed like a chimney sweep, red eyelids drooping over
+tired, smarting eyes, and disheveled, ash-filled hair topped by a
+man's gray felt hat. When she smiled her teeth shone dead white, like a
+negro's.
+
+Dick regarded her critically, one foot on the wheel hub. "Where did you
+get hold of Keith Cameron's hat?" he inquired.
+
+Beatrice snatched the hat from her head with childish petulance, and
+looked as if she were going to throw it viciously upon the ground. If
+her face had been clean Dick might have seen how the blood had rushed
+into her cheeks; as it was, she was safe behind a mask of soot. She
+placed the hat back upon her head, feeling, privately, a bit foolish.
+
+"I supposed it was yours. I took it off the halltree." The dignity of
+her tone was superb, but, unfortunately, it did not match her appearance
+of rakish vagabondage.
+
+Dick grinned through a deep layer of soot "Well, it happens to be
+Keith's. He lost it in the wind the other day, and I found it and took
+it home. It's too bad you've worn his hat all night and didn't know it.
+You ought to see yourself. Your own mother won't know you, Trix."
+
+"I can't look any worse than you do. A negro would be white by
+comparison. Do get in, so we can start! I'm tired to death, and
+half-starved." After these unamiable remarks, she refused to open her
+lips.
+
+They drove silently in the gray of early morning, and the empty barrels
+danced monotonously their fantastic jig in the back of the wagon.
+Sootyfaced cowboys galloped wearily over the prairie before them, and
+Sir Redmond rode moodily alongside.
+
+Of a truth, the glamour was gone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 11. Sir Redmond Waits His Answer.
+
+
+Beatrice felt distinctly out of sorts the next day, and chose an hour
+for her ride when she felt reasonably secure from unwelcome company. But
+when she went out into the sunshine there was Sir Redmond waiting with
+Rex and his big gray. Beatrice was not exactly elated at the sight, but
+she saw nothing to do but smile and make the best of it. She wanted
+to be alone, so that she could dream along through the hills she had
+learned to love, and think out some things which troubled her, and
+decide just how she had best go about winning Rex for herself; it had
+become quite necessary to her peace of mind that she should teach Dick
+and Keith Cameron a much-needed lesson.
+
+"It has been so long since we rode together," he apologized. "I hope you
+don't mind my coming along."
+
+"Oh, no! Why should I mind?" Beatrice smiled upon him in friendly
+fashion. She liked Sir Redmond very much--only she hoped he was
+not going to make love. Somehow, she did not feel in the mood for
+love-making just then.
+
+"I don't know why, I'm sure. But you seem rather fond of riding about
+these hills by yourself. One should never ask why women do things, I
+fancy. It seems always to invite disaster."
+
+"Does it?" Beatrice was not half-listening. They were passing, just
+then, the suburbs of a "dog town," and she was never tired of watching
+the prairie-dogs stand upon their burrows, chip-chip defiance until fear
+overtook their impertinence, and then dive headlong deep into the earth.
+"I do think a prairie-dog is the most impudent creature alive and the
+most shrewish. I never pass but I am scolded by these little scoundrels
+till my ears burn. What do you think they say?"
+
+"They're probably inviting you to stop with them and be their queen, and
+are scolding because your heart is hard and you only laugh and ride on."
+
+"Queen of a prairie-dog town! Dear me! Why this plaintive mood?"
+
+"Am I plaintive? I do not mean to be, I'm sure."
+
+"You don't appear exactly hilarious," she told him. "I can't see what is
+getting the matter with us all. Mama and your sister are poor company,
+even for each other, and Dick is like a bear. One can't get a civil word
+out of him. I'm not exactly amiable, myself, either; but I relied upon
+you to keep the mental temperature up to normal, Sir Redmond."
+
+"Perhaps it's a good thing we shall not stop here much longer. I must
+confess I don't fancy the country--and Mary is downright homesick. She
+wants to get back to her parish affairs; she's afraid some rheumatic old
+woman needs coddling with jelly and wine, and that sort of thing. I've
+promised to hurry through the business here, and take her home. But I
+mean to see that Pine Ridge fence in place before I go; or, at least,
+see it well under way."
+
+"I'm sure Dick will attend to it properly," Beatrice remarked, with pink
+cheeks. If she remembered what she had threatened to tell Sir Redmond,
+she certainly could not have asked for a better opportunity. She was
+reminding herself at that moment that she always detested a tale bearer.
+
+"Your brother Dick is a fine fellow, and I have every confidence in
+him; but you must see yourself that he is swayed, more or less, by
+his friendship for--his neighbors. It is only a kindness to take the
+responsibility off his shoulders till the thing is done. I'm sure he
+will feel better to have it so."
+
+"Yes," she agreed; "I think you're right. Dick always was very
+soft-hearted, and, right or wrong, he clings to his friends."
+Then, rather hastily, as though anxious to change the trend of the
+conversation: "Of course, your sister will insist on keeping Dorman with
+her. I shall miss that little scamp dreadfully, I'm afraid." The next
+minute she saw that she had only opened a subject she dreaded even more.
+
+"It is something to know that there is even one of us that you will
+miss," Sir Redmond observed. Something in his tone hurt.
+
+"I shall miss you all," she said hastily. "It has been a delightful
+summer."
+
+"I wish I might know just what element made it delightful. I wish--"
+
+"I scarcely think it has been any particular element," she broke in,
+trying desperately to stave off what she felt in his tone. "I love the
+wild, where I can ride, and ride, and never meet a human being--where
+I can dream and dally and feast my eyes on a landscape man has not
+touched. I have lived most of my life in New York, and I love nature
+so well that I'm inclined to be jealous of her. I want her left free to
+work out all her whims in her own way. She has a keen sense of humor, I
+think. The way she modeled some of these hills proves that she loves
+her little jokes. I have seen where she cut deep, fearsome gashes, with
+sides precipitous, as though she had some priceless treasure hidden away
+in the deep, where man cannot despoil it. And if you plot and plan,
+and try very hard, you may reach the bottom at last and find the
+treasure--nothing. Or, perhaps, a tiny little stream, as jealously
+guarded as though each drop were priceless."
+
+Sir Richmond rode for a few minutes in silence. When he spoke, it was
+abruptly.
+
+"And is that all? Is there nothing to this delightful summer, after all,
+but your hills?"
+
+"Oh, of course, I--it has all been delightful. I shall hate to go back
+home, I think." Beatrice was a bit startled to find just how much she
+would hate to go back and wrap herself once more in the conventions of
+society life. For the first time since she could remember, she wanted
+her world to stand still.
+
+Sir Redmond went doggedly to the point he had in mind and heart.
+
+"I hoped, Beatrice, you would count me, too. I've tried to be patient.
+You know, don't you, that I love you?"
+
+"You've certainly told me often enough," she retorted, in a miserable
+attempt at her old manner.
+
+"And you've put me off, and laughed at me, and did everything under
+heaven but answer me fairly. And I've acted the fool, no doubt. I know
+it. I've no courage before a woman. A curl of your lip, and I was ready
+to cut and run. But I can't go on this way forever--I've got to know.
+I wish I could talk as easy as I can fight; I'd have settled the thing
+long ago. Where other men can plead their cause, I can say just the one
+thing--I love you, Beatrice. When I saw you first, in the carriage I
+loved you then. You had some fur--brown fur--snuggled under your chin,
+and the pink of your cheeks, and your dear, brown eyes shining and
+smiling above--Good God! I've always loved you! From the beginning of
+the world, I think! I'd be good to you, Beatrice, and I believe I could
+make you happy--if you give me the chance."
+
+Something in Beatrice's throat ached cruelly. It was the truth, and she
+knew it. He did love her, and the love of a brave man is not a thing
+to be thrust lightly aside. But it demanded such a lot in return!
+More, perhaps, than she could give. A love like that--a love that gives
+everything--demands everything in return. Anything less insults it.
+
+She stole a glance at him. Sir Redmond was looking straight before him,
+with the fixed gaze that sees nothing. There was the white line around
+his mouth which Beatrice had seen once before. Again that griping ache
+was in her throat, till she could have cried out with the pain of it.
+She wanted to speak, to say something--anything--which would drive that
+look from his face.
+
+While her mind groped among the jumble of words that danced upon her
+tongue, and that seemed, all of them, so pitifully weak and inadequate,
+she heard the galloping hoofs of a horse pounding close behind. A
+choking cloud of dust swept down upon them, and Keith, riding in the
+midst, reined out to pass. He lifted his hat. His eyes challenged
+Beatrice, swept coldly the face of her companion, and turned again to
+the trail. He swung his heels backward, and Redcloud broke again into
+the tireless lope that carried him far ahead, until there was only a
+brown dot speeding over the prairie.
+
+Sir Redmond waited until Keith was far beyond hearing, then he filled
+his lungs deeply and looked at Beatrice. "Don't you feel you could trust
+me--and love me a little?"
+
+Beatrice was deadly afraid she was going to cry, and she hated weeping
+women above all things. "A little wouldn't do," she said, with what
+firmness she could muster. "I should want to love you as much--quite as
+much as you deserve, Sir Redmond, or not at all. I'm afraid I can't. I
+wish I could, though. I--I think I should like to love you; but perhaps
+I haven't much heart. I like you very much--better than I ever liked
+any one before; but oh, I wish you wouldn't insist on an answer! I don't
+know, myself, how I feel. I wish you had not asked me--yet. I tried not
+to let you."
+
+"A man can keep his heart still for a certain time, Beatrice, but not
+for always. Some time he will say what his heart commands, if the
+chance is given him; the woman can't hold him back. I did wait and wait,
+because I thought you weren't ready for me to speak. And--you don't care
+for anybody else?"
+
+"Of course I don't. But I hate to give up my freedom to any one, Sir
+Redmond. I want to be free--free as the wind that blows here always,
+and changes and changes, and blows from any point that suits its whim,
+without being bound to any rule."
+
+"Do you think I'm an ogre, that will lock you in a dungeon, Beatrice?
+Can't you see that I am not threatening your freedom? I only want the
+right to love you, and make you happy. I should not ask you to go or
+stay where you did not please, and I'd be good to you, Beatrice!"
+
+"I don't think it would matter," cried Beatrice, "if you weren't. I
+should love you because I couldn't help myself. I hate doing things by
+rule, I tell you. I couldn't care for you because you were good to me,
+and I ought to care; it must be because I can't help myself. And I--"
+She stopped and shut her teeth hard together; she felt sure she should
+cry in another minute if this went on.
+
+"I believe you do love me, Beatrice, and your rebellious young American
+nature dreads surrender." He tried to look into her eyes and smile,
+but she kept her eyes looking straight ahead. Then Sir Redmond made
+the biggest blunder of his life, out of the goodness of his heart, and
+because he hated to tease her into promising anything.
+
+"I won't ask you to tell me now, Beatrice," he said gently. "I want you
+to be sure; I never could forgive myself if you ever felt you had made a
+mistake. A week from to-night I shall ask you once more--and it will be
+for the last time. After that--But I won't think--I daren't think what
+it would be like if you say no. Will you tell me then, Beatrice?"
+
+The heart of Beatrice jumped into her throat. At that minute she was
+very near to saying yes, and having done with it. She was quite sure she
+knew, then, what her answer would be in a week. The smile she gave him
+started Sir Redmond's blood to racing exultantly. Her lips parted a
+little, as if a word were there, ready to be spoken; but she caught
+herself back from the decision. Sir Redmond had voluntarily given her a
+week; well, then, she would take it, to the last minute.
+
+"Yes, I'll tell you a week from to-night, after dinner. I'll race you
+home, Sir Redmond--the first one through the big gate by the stable
+wins!" She struck Rex a blow that made him jump, and darted off down
+the trail that led home, and her teasing laugh was the last Sir Redmond
+heard of her that day; for she whipped into a narrow gulch when the
+first turn hid her from him, and waited until he had thundered by. After
+that she rode complacently, deep into the hills, wickedly pleased at the
+trick she had played him.
+
+Every day during the week that followed she slipped away from him and
+rode away by herself, resolved to enjoy her freedom to the full while
+she had it; for after that, she felt, things would never be quite the
+same.
+
+Every day, when Dick had chance for a quiet word with her, he wanted
+to know who owned Rex--till at last she lost her temper and told him
+plainly that, in her opinion, Keith Cameron had left the country for
+two reasons, instead of one. (For Keith, be it known, had not been seen
+since the day he passed her and Sir Redmond on the trail.) Beatrice
+averred that she had a poor opinion of a man who would not stay and face
+whatever was coming.
+
+There was just one day left in her week of freedom, and Dick still owned
+Rex, with the chances all in his favor for continuing to do so. Still,
+Beatrice was vindictively determined upon one point. Let Keith Cameron
+cross her path, and she would do something she had never done before;
+she would deliberately lead him on to propose--if the fellow had nerve
+enough to do so, which, she told Dick, she doubted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 12. Held Up by Mr. Kelly.
+
+
+"'Traveler, what lies over the hill?'" questioned a mischievous voice.
+
+Keith, dreaming along a winding, rock-strewn trail in the canyon, looked
+up quickly and beheld his Heart's Desire sitting calmly upon her horse,
+ten feet before Redcloud's nose, watching him amusedly. Redcloud must
+have been dreaming also, or he would have whinnied warning and welcome,
+with the same breath.
+
+"'Traveler, tell to me,'" she went on, seeing Keith only stared.
+
+Keith, not to be outdone, searched his memory hurriedly for the reply
+which should rightly follow; secretly he was amazed at her sudden
+friendliness.
+
+"'Child, there's a valley over there'--but it isn't 'pretty and wooded
+and shy'--not what you can notice. And there isn't any 'little town,'
+either, unless you go a long way. Why?" Keith rested his gloved hands,
+one above the other, on the saddle horn, and let his eyes riot with the
+love that was in him. He had not seen his Heart's Desire for a week. A
+week? It seemed a thousand years! And here she was before him, unusually
+gracious.
+
+"Why? I discovered that hill two hours ago, it seems to me, and it
+wasn't more than a mile off. I want to see what lies on the other side.
+I feel sure no man ever stood upon the top and looked down. It is my
+hill--mine by the right of discovery. But I've been going, and going,
+and I think it's rather farther away, if anything, than it was before."
+
+"Good thing I met you'" Keith declared, and he looked as if he meant it.
+"You're probably lost, right now, and don't know it. Which way is home?"
+
+Beatrice smiled a superior smile, and pointed.
+
+"I thought so," grinned Keith joyously. "You're pointing straight toward
+Claggett."
+
+"It doesn't matter," said Beatrice, "since you know, and you're here.
+The important thing is to get to the top of that hill."
+
+"What for?" Keith questioned.
+
+"Why, to be there!" Beatrice opened her big eyes at him. "That," she
+declared whimsically, "is the top of the world, and it is mine. I found
+it. I want to go up there and look down."
+
+"It's an unmerciful climb," Keith demurred hypocritically, to strengthen
+her resolution.
+
+"All the better. I don't value what comes easily."
+
+"You won't see anything, except more hills."
+
+"I love hills--and more hills."
+
+"You're a long way from home, and it's after one o'clock."
+
+"I have a lunch with me, and I often stay out until dinner time."
+
+Keith gave a sigh that shook the saddle, making up, in volume, what
+it lacked in sincerity. The blood in him was a-jump at the prospect of
+leading his Heart's Desire up next the clouds--up where the world was
+yet young. A man in love is fond of self-torture.
+
+"I have not said you must go." Beatrice answered with the sigh.
+
+"You don't have to," he retorted. "It is a self evident fact. Who wants
+to go prowling around these hills by night, with a lantern that smokes
+an' has an evil smell, losing sleep and yowling like a bunch of coyotes,
+hunting a misguided young woman who thinks north is south, and can't
+point straight up?"
+
+"You draw a flattering picture, Mr. Cameron."
+
+"It's realistic. Do you still insist upon getting up there, for the
+doubtful pleasure of looking down?" Secretly, he hoped so.
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then I shall go with you."
+
+"You need not. I can go very well by myself, Mr. Cameron."
+
+Beatrice was something of a hypocrite herself.
+
+"I shall go where duty points the way."
+
+"I hope it points toward home, then."
+
+"It doesn't, though. It takes the trail you take."
+
+"I never yet allowed my wishes to masquerade as Disagreeable Duty, with
+two big D's," she told him tartly, and started off.
+
+"Say! If you're going up that hill, this is the trail. You'll bump up
+against a straight cliff if you follow that path."
+
+Beatrice turned with seeming reluctance and allowed him to guide her,
+just as she had intended he should do.
+
+"Dick tells me you have been away," she began suavely.
+
+"Yes. I've just got back from Fort Belknap," he explained quietly,
+though he must have known his absence had been construed differently.
+"I've rented pasturage on the reservation for every hoof I own. Great
+grass over there--the whole prairie like a hay meadow, almost, and
+little streams everywhere."
+
+"You are very fortunate," Beatrice remarked politely.
+
+"Luck ought to come my way once in a while. I don't seem to get more
+than my share, though."
+
+"Dick will be glad to know you have a good range for your cattle, Mr.
+Cameron."
+
+"I expect he will. You may tell him, for me, that Jim Worthington--he's
+the agent over there, and was in college with us--says I can have my
+cattle there as long as he's running the place."
+
+"Why not tell him yourself?" Beatrice asked.
+
+"I don't expect to be over to the Pool ranch for a while." Keith's tone
+was significant, and Beatrice dropped the subject.
+
+"Been fishing lately?" he asked easily, as though he had not left her
+that day in a miff. "No. Dorman is fickle, like all male creatures.
+Dick brought him two little brown puppies the other day, and now he can
+hardly be dragged from the woodshed to his meals. I believe he would eat
+and sleep with them if his auntie would allow him to."
+
+The trail narrowed there, and they were obliged to ride single file,
+which was not favorable to conversation. Thus far, Beatrice thought, she
+was a long way from winning her wager; but she did not worry--she looked
+up to where the hill towered above them, and smiled.
+
+"We'll have to get off and lead our horses over this spur," he told her,
+at last. "Once on the other side, we can begin to climb. Still in the
+humor to tackle it?"
+
+"To be sure I am. After all this trouble I shall not turn back."
+
+"All right," said Keith, inwardly shouting. If his Heart's Desire wished
+to take a climb that would last a good two hours, he was not there to
+object. He led her up a steep, rock-strewn ridge and into a hollow. From
+there the hill sloped smoothly upward.
+
+"I'll just anchor these cayuses to a rock, to make dead-sure of them,"
+Keith remarked. "It wouldn't be fun to be set afoot out here; now, would
+it? How would you like the job of walking home, eh?"
+
+"I don't think I'd enjoy it much," Beatrice said, showing her one dimple
+conspicuously. "I'd rather ride."
+
+"Throw up your hands!" growled a voice from somewhere.
+
+Keith wheeled toward the sound, and a bullet spatted into the yellow
+clay, two inches from the toe of his boot. Also, a rifle cracked
+sharply. He took the hint, and put his hands immediately on a level with
+his hat crown.
+
+"No use," he called out ruefully. "I haven't anything to return the
+compliment with."
+
+"Well, I've got t' have the papers fur that, mister," retorted the
+voice, and a man appeared from the shelter of a rock and came slowly
+down to them--a man, long-legged and lank, with haggard, unshaven face
+and eyes that had hunger and dogged endurance looking out. He picked his
+way carefully with his feet, his eyes and the rifle fixed unswervingly
+at the two. Beatrice was too astonished to make a sound.
+
+"What sort of a hold-up do you call this?" demanded Keith hotly, his
+hands itching to be down and busy. "We don't carry rolls of money around
+in the hills, you fool!"
+
+"Oh, damn your money!" the man said roughly. "I've got money t' burn.
+I want t' trade horses with yuh. That roan, there, looks like a stayer.
+I'll take him."
+
+"Well, seeing you seem to be head push here, I guess it's a trade,"
+Keith answered. "But I'll thank you for my own saddle."
+
+Beatrice, whose hands were up beside her ears, and not an inch higher,
+changed from amazed curiosity to concern. "Oh, you mustn't take Redcloud
+away from Mr. Cameron!" she protested. "You don't know--he's so fond
+of that horse! You may take mine; he's a good horse--he's a perfectly
+splendid horse, but I--I'm not so attached to him."
+
+The fellow stopped and looked at her--not, however, forgetting Keith,
+who was growing restive. Beatrice's cheeks were very pink, and her eyes
+were bright and big and earnest. He could not look into them without
+letting some of the sternness drop out of his own.
+
+"I wish you'd please take Rex--I'd rather trade than not," she coaxed.
+When Beatrice coaxed, mere man must yield or run. The fellow was but
+human, and he was not in a position to run, so he grinned and wavered.
+
+"It's fair to say you'll get done," he remarked, his eyes upon the
+odd little dimple at the corner of her mouth, as if he had never seen
+anything quite so fetching.
+
+"Your horse won't cr--buck, will he?" she ventured doubtfully. This was
+her first horse trade, and it behooved her to be cautious, even at the
+point of a rifle.
+
+"Well, no," said the man laconically; "he won't. He's dead."
+
+"Oh!" Beatrice gasped and blushed. She might have known, she thought,
+that the fellow would not take all this trouble if his horse was in a
+condition to buck. Then: "My elbows hurt. I--I think I should like to
+sit down."
+
+"Sure," said the man politely. "Make yourself comfortable. I ain't used
+t' dealin' with ladies. But you got t' set still, yuh know, and not try
+any tricks. I can put up a mighty swift gun play when I need to--and
+your bein' a lady wouldn't cut no ice in a case uh that kind."
+
+"Thank you." Beatrice sat down upon the nearest rock, folded her hands
+meekly and looked from him to Keith, who seethed to claim a good deal of
+the man's attention. She observed that, at a long breath from Keith, his
+captor was instantly alert.
+
+"Maybe your elbows ache, too," he remarked dryly. "They'll git over it,
+though; I've knowed a man t' grab at the clouds upwards of an hour, an'
+no harm done."
+
+"That's encouraging, I'm sure." Keith shifted to the other foot.
+
+"How's that sorrel?" demanded the man. "Can he go?"
+
+Keith hesitated a second.
+
+"Indeed he can go!" put in Beatrice eagerly. "He's every bit as good as
+Redcloud."
+
+"Is that sorrel yours?" The man's eyes shifted briefly to her face.
+
+"No-o." Beatrice, thinking how she had meant to own him, blushed.
+
+"That accounts for it." He laughed unpleasantly. "I wondered why you was
+so dead anxious t' have me take him."
+
+The eyes of Beatrice snapped sparks at him, but her manner was demure,
+not to say meek. "He belongs to my brother," she explained, "and my
+brother has dozens of good saddle-horses. Mr. Cameron's horse is a pet.
+It's different when a horse follows you all over the place and fairly
+talks to you. He'll shake hands, and--"
+
+"Uh-huh, I see the point, I guess. What d'yuh say, kid?"
+
+Keith might seem boyish, but he did not enjoy being addressed as "kid."
+He was twenty-eight years old, whether he looked it or not.
+
+"I say this: If you take my horse, I'll kill you. I'll have twenty-five
+cow-punchers camping on your trail before sundown. If you take this
+girl's horse, I'll do the same."
+
+The man shut his lips in a thin line.
+
+"No, he won't!" cried Beatrice, leaning forward. "Don't mind a thing he
+says! You can't expect a man to keep his temper with his hands up in the
+air like that. You take Rex, and I'll promise for Mr. Cameron."
+
+"Trix--Miss Lansell!"--sternly.
+
+"I promise you he won't do a thing," she went on firmly. "He--he isn't
+half as fierce, really, as--as he looks."
+
+Keith's face got red.
+
+The man laughed a little. Evidently the situation amused him, whether
+the others could see the humor of it or not. "So I'm to have your
+cayuse, eh?"
+
+Keith saw two big tears tipping over her lower lids, and gritted his
+teeth.
+
+"Well, it ain't often I git a chance t' please a lady," the fellow
+decided. "I guess Rex'll do, all right. Go over and change saddles,
+youngster--and don't git gay. I've got the drop, and yuh notice I'm
+keeping it."
+
+"Are you going to take his saddle?" Beatrice stood up and clenched her
+hands, looking very much as if she would like to pull his hair. Keith in
+trouble appealed to her strangely.
+
+"Sure thing. It's a peach, from the look of it. Mine's over the hill a
+piece. Step along there, kid! I want t' be movin'."
+
+"You'll need to go some!" flared Keith, over his shoulder.
+
+"I expect t' go some," retorted the man. "A fellow with three sheriff's
+posses campin' on his trail ain't apt t' loiter none."
+
+"Oh!" Beatrice sat down and stared. "Then you must be--"
+
+"Yep," the fellow laughed recklessly. "You ca, tell your maw yuh met up
+with Kelly, the darin' train-robber. I wouldn't be s'prised if she close
+herded yuh fer a spell till her scare wears off. Bu I've hung around
+these parts long enough. I fooled them sheriffs a-plenty, stayin' here.
+Gee! you'r' swift--I don't think!" This last sentence was directed at
+Keith, who was putting a snail to shame, and making it appear he was in
+a hurry.
+
+"Git a move on!" commanded Kelly, threatening with his eyes.
+
+Keith wisely made no reply--nor did he show any symptoms of haste,
+despite the menacing tone Slowly he pulled his saddle off Redcloud,
+and carefully he placed it upon the ground. When a fellow lives in
+his saddle, almost, he comes to think a great deal of it, and he is
+reluctant under any circumstances, to surrender it to another; to have
+a man deliberately confiscate it with the authority which lies in a lump
+of lead the size of a child thumb is not pleasant.
+
+Through Keith's brain flashed a dozen impracticable plans, and one that
+offered a slender--very slender--chance of success. If he could get
+a little closer! He moved over beside Rex an unbuckling the cinch of
+Beatrice's saddle, pulled it sullenly off.
+
+"Now, put your saddle on that there Rex horse, and cinch it tight!"
+
+Keith picked up the saddle--his saddle, and threw it across Rex's back,
+raging inwardly at his helplessness. To lose his saddle worse, to let
+Beatrice lose her horse. Lord! a pretty figure he must cut in her eyes!
+
+"Dry weather we're havin'," Kelly remarked politely to Beatrice;
+without, however, looking in her direction. "Prairie fires are gittin'
+t' be the regular thing, I notice."
+
+Beatrice studied his face, and found no ulterior purpose for the words.
+
+"Yes," she agreed, as pleasantly as she could, in view of the
+disquieting circumstances. "I helped fight a prairie-fire last week over
+this way. We were out all night."
+
+"Prairie-fires is mean things t' handle, oncet they git started. I
+always hate t' see 'em git hold of the grass. What fire was that you
+mention?"
+
+Beatrice glanced toward Keith, and was thankful his back was turned to
+her. But a quick suspicion had come to her, and she went steadily on
+with the subject.
+
+"It was the Pine Ridge country. It started very mysteriously."
+
+"It wasn't no mystery t' me." Kelly laughed grimly. "I started that
+there blaze myself accidentally. I throwed a cigarette down, thinkin'
+it had gone out. After a while I seen a blaze where I'd jest left, but
+I didn't have no license t' go back an' put it out--my orders was to git
+out uh that. I seen the sky all lit up that night. Kid, are yuh goin' t'
+sleep?"
+
+Keith started. He had been listening, and thanking his lucky star that
+Beatrice was listening also. If she had suspected him of setting the
+range afire, she knew better now. A weight lifted off Keith's shoulders,
+and he stood a bit straighter; those chance words meant a great deal
+to him, and he felt that he would not grudge his saddle in payment. But
+Rex--that was another matter. Beatrice should not lose him if he could
+prevent it; still, what could he do?
+
+He might turn and spring upon Kelly, but in the meantime Kelly would
+not be idle; he would probably be pumping bullets out of the rifle into
+Keith's body--and he would still have the horse. He stole a glance at
+Beatrice, and went hot all over at what he thought he read in her eyes.
+For once he was not glad to be near his Heart's Desire; he wished her
+elsewhere--anywhere but sitting on that rock, over there, with her
+little, gloved hands folded quietly in her lap, and that adorable,
+demure look on her face--the look which would have put her mother
+instantly upon the defensive--and a gleam in her eyes Keith read for
+scorn.
+
+Surely he might do something! Barely six feet now separated him from
+Kelly. If one of those lumps of rock that strewed the ground was in
+his hand--he stooped to reach under Rex's body for the cinch, and could
+almost feel Kelly's eyes boring into his back. A false move--well, Keith
+had heard of Kelly a good many times; if this fellow was really the
+man he claimed to be, Keith did not need to guess what would follow a
+suspicious move; he knew. He looked stealthily toward him, and Kelly's
+eyes met his with a gleam sinister.
+
+Kelly grinned. "I wouldn't, kid," he said softly.
+
+Keith swore in a whisper, and his fingers closed upon the cinch. It was
+no use to fight the devil with cunning, he thought, bitterly.
+
+Just then Beatrice gave an unearthly screech, that made the horses'
+knees bend under them. When Keith whirled to see what it was, she was
+standing upon the rock, with her skirts held tightly around her, like
+the pictures of women when a mouse gets into the room.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Cameron! A sn-a-a-ke!"
+
+Came a metallic br-r-r, the unmistakable war cry of the rattler. Into
+Kelly's eyes came a look of fear, and he sidled gingerly. The buzz had
+sounded unpleasantly close to his heels. For one brief instant the cold
+eye of his rifle regarded harmlessly the hillside. During that instant a
+goodly piece of sandstone whinged under his jaw, and he went down, with
+Keith upon him like a mountain lion. The latter snatched the rifle
+and got up hurriedly, for he had not forgotten the rattler. Kelly lay
+looking up at him in a dazed way that might have been funny at any other
+time.
+
+"I wondered if you were good at grasping opportunities," said Beatrice.
+When he looked, there she was, sitting down on the rock, with her
+little, gloved hands folded in her lap, and that adorable demure look on
+her face; and a gleam in her eyes he knew was not scorn, though he could
+not rightly tell what it really did mean.
+
+Keith wondered at her vaguely, but a man can't have his mind on a dozen
+things at once. It was important that he keep a sharp watch on Kelly,
+and his eyes were searching for a gleaming, gray spotted coil which he
+felt to be near.
+
+"You needn't look, Mr. Cameron. There isn't any snake. It--it was I."
+
+"You!" Keith's jaw dropped.
+
+"Look out, Mr. Cameron. It wouldn't work a second time, I'm afraid."
+
+Keith turned back before Kelly had more than got to his elbow; plainly
+Kelly was not feeling well just then. He looked unhappy, and rather
+sick.
+
+"If you'll hand me the gun, Mr. Cameron, I think I can hold it steady
+while you fix the saddles. And then we'll go home. I--I don't think I
+really care to climb the hill."
+
+What Keith wanted to do was to take her in his arms and kiss her till
+he was tired. What he did do was back toward her, and let her take the
+rifle quickly and deftly from his hands. She rested the gun upon
+her knee, and brought it to bear upon Mr. Kelly with a composure not
+assuring to that gentleman, and she tried to look as if she really and
+truly would shoot a man--and managed to look only the more kissable.
+
+"Don't squirm, Mr. Kelly. I won't bite, if I do buzz sometimes."
+
+Kelly stared at her meditatively a minute, and said: "Well, I'll be
+damned!"
+
+Keith looked at her also, but he did not say anything.
+
+The way he slapped his saddle back upon Redcloud and cinched it, and
+saddled Rex, was a pretty exhibition of precision and speed, learned in
+roundup camps. Kelly watched him grimly.
+
+"I knowed you wasn't as swift as yuh knew how 't be, a while back,"
+he commented. "I've got this t' say fur you two: You're a little the
+toughest proposition I ever run up ag'inst--and I've been up ag'inst it
+good and plenty."
+
+"Thanks," Keith said cheerfully. "You'd better take Rex now and go
+ahead, Miss Lansell. I'll take that gun and look after this fellow. Get
+up, Kelly."
+
+"What are you going to do with him?"
+
+Kelly got unsteadily upon his feet. Beatrice looked at him, and then at
+Keith. She asked a question.
+
+"March him home, and send him in to the nearest sheriff." Keith was
+businesslike, and his tone was crisp.
+
+Beatrice's eyes turned again to Kelly. He did not whine, or beg, or
+even curse. He stood looking straight before him, at something only his
+memory could see, and in his face was weariness, and a deep loneliness,
+and a certain, grim despair. There was an ugly bruise where the rock had
+struck, but the rest of his face was drawn and white.
+
+"If you do that," cried Beatrice, in a voice hardly more than a fierce
+whisper, "I shall hate you always. You are not a man-hunter. Let him
+stay here, and take his chance in the hills."
+
+Keith was not a hard man to persuade into being merciful. "It's easy
+enough to say yes, Miss Lansell. I always was chicken-hearted when a
+fellow seemed down on his luck. You can stay here, Kelly--I don't want
+you, anyway." He laughed boyishly and irresponsibly, for he felt that
+Kelly had done him a service that day.
+
+Beatrice flashed him a smile that went to his head and made him dizzy,
+and took up Rex's bridle rein. She hesitated, looked doubtfully at
+Kelly, who stood waiting stoically, and turned to her saddle. She untied
+a bundle and went quickly over to him.
+
+"You--I don't want my lunch, after all. I'm going home now. I--I want
+you to take it, please. There are some sandwiches--with veal loaf, that
+Looey Sam makes deliciously--and some cake. I--I wish it was more. I
+know you'll like the veal loaf."
+
+Kelly looked down at her, and God knows what thoughts were in his mind.
+He did not answer her with words; he just swallowed hard.
+
+"Poor devil!" was what Keith said to himself, and the gun he was holding
+threatened, for a minute, to wing a cloud.
+
+Beatrice laid the package in Kelly's unresisting hand, looked up into
+his averted face and said simply: "Good-by, Mr. Kelly."
+
+After that she hurried Rex up the steep ridge much faster than she
+had gone down it, endangering his bones and putting herself very empty
+lunged.
+
+At the top of the ridge Keith stopped and looked down.
+
+"Hi, Kelly!"
+
+Kelly showed that he heard.
+
+"Here's your gun, on this rock. You can come up and get it, if you want
+to. And--say! I've got a few broke horses ranging down here somewhere.
+VN brand, on left shoulder. I won't scour the hills, very bad, if I
+should happen to miss a cayuse. So long!"
+
+Kelly waved his hand for farewell.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 13. Keith's Masterful Wooing.
+
+
+Keith faced toward home, with Redcloud following at his heels like a pet
+dog. For some reason, which he did not try to analyze, he was feeling
+light of heart--as though something very nice had happened to him.
+It might have been the unexpected clearing up of the mystery of the
+prairie-fire, though he was not dwelling particularly upon that. He
+was thinking a great deal more of Beatrice's blue-brown eyes, which had
+never been more baffling, so far as he knew. And his blood was still
+dancing with the smile she had given him; it hardly seemed possible that
+a girl could smile just like that and not mean anything.
+
+When he reached the level, where she was waiting for him, he saw that
+she had her arms around the neck of her horse, and that she was crying
+dismally, heart-brokenly, with an abandon that took no thought of his
+presence. Keith had never seen a girl cry like that before. He had
+seen them dab at their eyes with their handkerchief, and smile the next
+breath--but this was different. For a minute he didn't quite know what
+to do; he could hear the blood hammering against his temples while he
+stood dumbly watching her. He went hesitatingly up, and laid a gloved
+hand deprecatingly upon her shoulder.
+
+"Don't do that, Miss Lansell! The fellow isn't worth it. He's only
+living the life he chose for himself, and he doesn't mind, not half
+as much as you imagine. I know how you feel--I felt sorry for him
+myself--but he doesn't deserve it, you know." He stopped; not being
+able, just at the moment, to think of anything more to say about Kelly.
+Beatrice, who had not been thinking of Kelly at all, but remorsefully of
+a fellow she had persisted in misjudging, only cried the harder.
+
+"Don't--don't cry like that! I--Miss Lansell--Trix--darling!" Keith's
+self-control snapped suddenly, like a rope when the strain becomes too
+great. He caught her fiercely in his arms, and crushed her close against
+him.
+
+Beatrice stopped crying, and gasped.
+
+"Trixie, if you must cry, I wish you'd cry for me. I'm about as
+miserable a man--I want you so! God made you for me, and I'm starving
+for the feel of your lips on mine." Then Keith, who was nothing if not
+daring, once he was roused, bent and kissed her without waiting to see
+if he might--and not only once, but several times.
+
+Beatrice made a half-hearted attempt to get free of his arms, but Keith
+was not a fool--he held her closer, and laughed from pure, primitive
+joy.
+
+"Mr. Cameron!" It was Beatrice's voice, but it had never been like that
+before.
+
+"I think you might call me Keith," he cut in. "You've got to begin some
+time, and now is as good a time as any."
+
+"You--you're taking a good deal for granted," she said, wriggling
+unavailingly in his arms.
+
+"A man's got to, with a girl like you. You're so used to turning a
+fellow down I believe you'd do it just from habit."
+
+"Indeed?" She was trying to be sarcastic and got kissed for her pains.
+
+"Yes, 'indeed.'" He mimicked her tone. "I want you. I want you! I wanted
+you long before I ever saw you. And so I'm not taking any chances--I
+didn't dare, you see. I just had to take you first, and ask you
+afterward."
+
+Beatrice laughed a little, with tears very close to her lashes, and
+gave up. What was the use of trying to resist this masterful fellow, who
+would not even give her a chance to refuse him? She did not know quite
+how to say no to a man who did not ask her to say yes. But the queer
+part, to her, was the feeling that she would have hated to say no,
+anyway. It never occurred to her, till afterward, that she might
+have stood upon a pedestal of offended dignity and cried, "Unhand me,
+villain!"--and that, if she had, Keith would undoubtedly have complied
+instantly. As it was, she just laughed softly, and blushed a good deal.
+
+"I believe mama is right about you, after all," she said wickedly. "At
+heart, you're a bold highwayman."
+
+"Maybe. I know I'd not stand and see some other fellow walk off with my
+Heart's Desire, without putting up a fight. It did look pretty blue
+for me, though, and I was afraid--but it's all right now, isn't it?
+Possession is nine points in law, they say, and I've got you now! I'm
+going to keep you, too. When are you going to come over and take charge
+of the Cross ranch?"
+
+"Dear me!" said Beatrice, snuggling against his shoulder, and finding
+it the best place in the world to be. "I never said I was going to take
+charge at all!" Then the impulse of confession seized her. "Will you
+hate me, if I tell you something?"
+
+"I expect I will," Keith assented, his eyes positively idolatrous. "What
+is it, girlie?"
+
+"Well, I--it was Dick's fault; I never would have thought of such a
+thing if he hadn't goaded me into it--but--well, I was going to make
+you propose, on a wager--" The brown head of Beatrice went down out of
+sight, on his arm. "I was going to refuse you--and get Rex--"
+
+"I know." Keith held her closer than ever. "Dick rode over and told me
+that day. And I wasn't going to give you a chance, missy. If you hadn't
+started to cry, here-- Oh! what's the use? You didn't refuse me--and
+you're not going to, either, are you, girlie?"
+
+Beatrice intimated that there was no immediate danger of such a thing
+happening.
+
+"You see, Dick and I felt that you belonged to me, by rights. I fell in
+love with a picture of you, that you sent him--that one taken in your
+graduation gown--and I told Dick I was going to take the next train
+East, and carry you off by force, if I couldn't get you any other way.
+But Dick thought I'd stand a better show to wait till he'd coaxed you
+out here. We had it all fixed, that you'd come and find a prairie knight
+that was ready to fight for you, and he'd make you like him, whether
+you wanted to or not; and then he'd keep you here, and we'd all be happy
+ever after. And Dick would pull out of the Northern Pool--and of course
+you would--and we'd have a company of our own. Oh! we had some great
+castles built out here on the prairie, let me tell you! And then, when
+you finally came here, you had milord tagging along--and you thinking
+you were in love with him! Maybe you think I wasn't shaky, girlie! The
+air castles got awfully wobbly, and it looked like they were going to
+cave in on us. But I was bound to stay in the game if I could, and Dick
+did all he could to get you to looking my way--and it's all right, isn't
+it, Trixie?" Keith kept recurring to the ecstatic realization that it
+was all right.
+
+Beatrice meditated for a minute.
+
+"I never dreamed--Dick never even mentioned you in any of his letters,"
+she said, in a rather dazed tone. "And when I came he made me believe
+you were a horrible flirt, and I never can resist the temptation to
+measure lances."
+
+"And take a fall out of a male flirt," Keith supplemented. "Dick," he
+went on sententiously and slangily, "was dead onto his job." After that
+he helped her into the saddle, and they rode blissfully homeward.
+
+Near the ranch they met Dick, who pulled up and eyed them anxiously at
+first, and then with a broad smile.
+
+"Say, Trix," he queried slyly, "who does Rex belong to?"
+
+Keith came to the rescue promptly, just as a brave knight should. "You,"
+he retorted. "But I tell you right now, he won't very long. You're going
+to do the decent thing and give him to Trixie--for a wedding present."
+
+Dick looked as though Trix was welcome to any thing he possessed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 14. Sir Redmond Gets His answer.
+
+
+"Before long, dear, we shall get on the great ship, and ride across the
+large, large ocean, and be at home. You will be delighted to see Peggy,
+and Rupert, and the dogs, won't you, dear?" Miss Hayes, her cheeks
+actually getting some color into them at the thought of going home,
+buttered a fluffy biscuit for her idol.
+
+Dorman took two bites while he considered. "Rupert'll want my little
+wheels, for my feet, what Mr. Cam'ron gave me--but he can't have 'em,
+dough. I 'spect he'll be mad. I wonder what'll Peggy say bout my two
+puppies. I've got to take my two puppies wis me. Will dey get sick
+riding on de water, auntie? Say, will dey?"
+
+"I--I think not, dear," ventured his auntie cautiously. His auntie was a
+conscientious woman, and she knew very little about puppies.
+
+"Be'trice will help me take care of dem if dey're sick," he remarked
+comfortably.
+
+Then something in his divinity's face startled his assurance. "You's
+going wis us, isn't you, Be'trice? I want you to help take care of my
+two puppies. Martha can't, 'cause she slaps dere ears. Is you going wis
+us, Be'trice?"
+
+This, at the dinner table, was, to say the least,
+embarrassing--especially on this especial evening, when Beatrice was
+trying to muster courage to give Sir Redmond the only answer it was
+possible to give him now. It was an open secret that, in case she had
+accepted him, the home-going of Miss Hayes would be delayed a bit, when
+they would all go together. Beatrice had overheard her mother and Miss
+Hayes discussing this possibility only the day before. She undertook the
+impossible, and attempted to head Dorman off.
+
+"Perhaps you'll see a whale, honey. The puppies never saw a whale, I'm
+sure. What do you suppose they'd think?"
+
+"Is you going?"
+
+"You'd have to hold them up high, you know, so they could see, and show
+them just where to look, and--"
+
+"Is you going, Be'trice?"
+
+Beatrice sent a quick, despairing glance around the table. Four pairs of
+eyes were fixed upon her with varying degrees of interest and anxiety.
+The fifth pair--Dick's--were trying to hide their unrighteous glee by
+glaring down at the chicken wing on his plate. Beatrice felt a strong
+impulse to throw something at him. She gulped and faced the inevitable.
+It must come some time, she thought, and it might as well be now--though
+it did seem a pity to spoil a good dinner for every one but Dick, who
+was eating his with relish.
+
+"No, honey"--her voice was clear and had the note of finality--"I'm not
+going--ever."
+
+Sir Redmond's teeth went together with a click, and he picked up the
+pepper shaker mechanically and peppered his salad until it was perfectly
+black, and Beatrice wondered how he ever expected to eat it. Mrs.
+Lansell dropped her fork on the floor, and had to have a clean one
+brought. Miss Hayes sent a frightened glance at her brother. Dick sat
+and ate fried chicken.
+
+"Why, Be'trice? I wants you to--and de puppies'll need you--and auntie,
+and--" Dorman gathered himself for the last, crushing argument--"and
+Uncle Redmon' wants you awf'lly!"
+
+Beatrice took a sip of ice water, for she needed it.
+
+"Why, Be'trice? Gran-mama'll let you go, guess. Can't she go,
+gran'mama?"
+
+It was Mrs. Lansell's turn to test the exquisite torture of that prickly
+chill along the spine. Like Beatrice, she dodged.
+
+"Little boys," she announced weakly, "should not speak until they're
+spoken to."
+
+Dick came near strangling on a shred of chicken.
+
+"Can't she go, gran'mama? Say, can't she? Tell Be'trice to go home wis
+us, gran'mama!"
+
+"Beatrice"--Mrs. Lansell swallowed--"is not a little child any longer,
+Dorman. She is a woman and can do as she likes. I"--she was speaking to
+the whole group--"I can only advise her."
+
+Dorman gave a squeal of triumph. "See? You can go, Be'trice! Gran'mama
+says you can go. You will go, won't you, Be'trice? Say yes!"
+
+"No!" said Beatrice, with desperate emphasis. "I won't."
+
+"I want--Be'trice--to go-o!" Dorman slid down upon his shoulder blades,
+gave a squeal which was not triumph, but temper, and kicked the table
+till every dish on it danced.
+
+"Dorman sit up!" commanded his auntie. "Dorman, stop, this instant! I'm
+ashamed of you; where is my good little man? Redmond."
+
+Sir Redmond seemed glad of the chance to do something besides sit
+quietly in his place and look calm. He got up deliberately, and in two
+minutes, or less, Dorman was in the woodshed with him, making sounds
+that frightened his puppies dreadfully and put the coyotes to shame.
+
+Beatrice left the table hurriedly to escape the angry eyes of her
+mother. The sounds in the woodshed had died to a subdued sniffling, and
+she retreated to the front porch, hoping to escape observation. There
+she nearly ran against Sir Redmond, who was staring off into the dusk to
+where the moon was peering redly over a black pinnacle of the Bear Paws.
+
+She would have slipped back into the house, but he did not give her the
+chance. He turned and faced her steadily, as he had more than once faced
+the Boers, when he knew that before him was nothing but defeat.
+
+"So you're not going to England ever?"
+
+Pride had squeezed every shade of emotion from his voice.
+
+"No." Beatrice gripped her fingers together tightly.
+
+"Are you sure you won't be sorry--afterward?"
+
+"Yes, I'm sure." Beatrice had never done anything she hated more.
+
+Sir Redmond, looking into her eyes, wondered why those much-vaunted
+sharpshooters, the Boers, had blundered and passed him by.
+
+"I don't suppose it matters much now--but will you tell me why? I
+believed you would decide differently." He was holding his voice down to
+a dead level, and it was not easy.
+
+"Because--" Beatrice faced the moon, which threw a soft glow upon her
+face, and into her wonderful, deep eyes a golden light. "Oh, I'm sorry,
+Sir Redmond! But you see, I didn't know. I--I just learned to-day what
+it means to--to love. I--I am going to stay here. A new company--is
+about to be formed, Sir Redmond. The Maltese Cross and the--Triangle
+Bar--are going to cast their lot together." The golden glow deepened and
+darkened, and blended with the red blood which flushed cheek and brow
+and throat.
+
+It took Sir Redmond a full minute to comprehend. When he did, he
+breathed deep, shut his lips upon words that would have frightened her,
+and went down the steps into the gloom.
+
+Beatrice watched him stride away into the dusky silence, and her heart
+ached with sympathy for him. Then she looked beyond, to where the lights
+of the Cross ranch twinkled joyously, far down the coulee, and the sweet
+egotism of happiness enfolded her, shutting him out. After that she
+forgot him utterly. She looked up at the moon, sailing off to meet the
+stars, smiled good-fellowship and then went in to face her mother.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Her Prairie Knight, by 
+B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT ***
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