Ewing's Lady. Harry Leon Wilson
kid."
"Was I?" She looked politely blank.
"Sure you was—jest 'fore supper. Wa'al, Ewing's kid is the son of a man named—now hear me talk! Course he's his father's son. Wa'al, anyway, this man Ewing comes in here with this kid about fifteen, sixteen year ago, an' takes that place over there by the lake to git cured up o' the consumption. He was a painter, painted pitchers an' all sech, understand?—puts up a big stoodio with a winder in it six feet high to paint by. But he was puny. He couldn't fat up none. You never seen a critter so gaunted as he was. Some said he never got over losin' his wife. Anyway, 't wa'n't no surprise when he was took off, seven, eight year ago. An' since he died that there kid has sort o' half run the place along with a feller named Ben Crider that the old man had got fur help. O' course we all kind o' looked in on the boy at first to make sure he wa'n't in need, an' done a day's work now an' then, an' they raised a few horses an' a few cattle an' one thing an' another. Trouble with that boy, though, he's always putterin' round with his dad's paint brushes, an' talkin' about portrayin' art an' all like that, understand? I've told that kid time an' time again, 'Kid,' I says, 'never you mind about portrayin' art an' depictin' the linnerments an' the varied aspecks o' nature,' I says; 'you jes' burn up them foolish little long-shanked paint brushes in your Charter Oak cookstove,' I says, 'an' ten' to portrayin' a good little bunch of cattle an' depictin' Ben Crider to work also, an' you'll git somewhur's,' I says. But him—why, he jes' moons along. An' Ben Crider ain't much better. Ben ain't no stimulant to him. Ben had ort to been the only son of a tenderhearted widow lady of means. That's what he'd ort to been. You give him a new coon song out of a Sunday supplement an' his guitar, an' Ben's fixed fur half a day at least. He ain't goin' to worry none about a strayed yearlin' or two. Why, one time, I rec'lect——"
"Then young Mr. Ewing is a painter, too?" she interrupted.
"Wa'al"—Pierce became judicial—"yes an' no. He ain't a reg'ler one, like you might say—not like his pa was. Still, he can do hand paintin'—if you want to call it that. Made a pitcher o' me this summer, bein' buckjumped by old Tobe. Tobe was cert'n'y actin' high, wide an' handsome, comin' down with his four hoofs in a bunch, an' me lookin' like my works was comin' all apart the next minute. A lively pitcher—yes; but, my Lord! it wa'n't a thing you could show! It made me out that reediculous. Course, I ain't Mrs. Langtry, but you got to draw the line somewhurs, hain't you? Now there"—Beulah pushed an informing thumb toward crayon portraits of himself and Mrs. Pierce that graced the opposite wall in frames of massive gilt, one on either side of the organ—"that's what you can call art—drawn by a reg'ler one down to Durango—everything showin' like it ort to, expressions an' all, even down to Ma Pierce's breastpin an' my watch chain, made out o' my own mother's hair. They're decent pitchers. That other one was plumb indecent, I can tell you. Ma she up an' hid it away, quick as she seen it."
"And has he done other things?"
"Hey?"
"Painted other pictures?"
"Slathers—horses an' animals an' Ben Crider with his gun an' all sech, an' deer. Say now, I seen another artist down to the Durango fair last fall that was a genuine wonder an' no mistake. He was writin' callin' cards at a little table, an' he could draw a runnin' deer all in flourishes an' curlycurves, without liftin' his pen from the card, all slick an' natural as you'd want to——"
"Did you know his mother?"
"No-o-o—didn't even know him. I jest stopped to look an' he drawed a fine big bird right while I watched, havin' a ribbon in its bill with my name on it in red ink; about as tasty a thing as you'd care to see, fur a quarter of a dollar. It's round the house somewhur now, I reckon, if you——"
"Ewing's kid's mother?"
"Hey? Oh, no, I never knew that lady. She passed away sommers off up the state before these other parties moved in."
"Does the boy resemble his father?"
"Ewing? Wa'al, not to say resemble. In fact he didn't favor him, not at all, that I can rec'lect. He must of been most like his ma."
The lady had been speaking as from a distance, staring fixedly into the fire, with the distraction of one engaged in some hopeless feat of memory. So intently aloof was she that Pierce had to repeat his next remark.
"I say, you don't never want to let Cooney git you started up that trail you was speakin' about. First place, it's steeper'n the side of a house. Next place, ever let him git you to the top, he'd land you slambang over to Ewing's, spite of all you could do."
"Thank you! I'll be sure to remember that. Good night!"
She left him, still with the far-centered, puzzled look on her face—the shadow of some resemblance, indefinite, nameless, but insistent.
CHAPTER II
A LADY LOSES HERSELF
ONLY a few miles separate Bar-7 from the Ewing place; but they are interesting miles and at least one of them will be found exciting by the town-bred novice. There is a stretch where the trail leaves the valley road and zigzags up the face of the east bench to a height from which one may survey the whole sleeping valley of the Wimmenuche as through a reducing glass. The way seems no broader than one's hand, and to Mrs. Laithe, who approached it from across the flat and studied it for the first time as a practicable thoroughfare, it looked to be impossibly perpendicular; a climb that no horse in its right mind would attempt, an angle of elevation that no rider could sustain.
Brought to incredulity by this survey, she pulled Cooney to a walk as she neared the parting of the ways. Then, indecisively, she let the bridle rein fall on his neck. The little horse loitered on, splashing through the creek with a few leisurely sips of its icy water (taken merely in the spirit of a connoisseur), and a moment later halted where the bench trail turned out. At the beginning of his intimacy with his present rider he had adopted rushing tactics at this point, leaping at the trail in a fine pretense that no other way could have been thought of, and showing a hurt bewilderment when the sudden pull brought him about and into the valley road. For that was a road that led nowhere, since it led away from his home. Day after day he had played this game, seemingly with an untouched faith that some time he would win. Day after day had he exercised all his powers of astonished protest when the frustrating tug was felt. But these tugs had become sharper, to betoken the rider's growing impatience, and it may be surmised that on this day Cooney had lost his faith. If it were inevitable that one should be whirled back into the broad, foolish way, one might save effort by omitting that first futile rush; one might stop and let evil come. Cooney stopped now, drooping in languid cynicism.
His rider waited, wishing that he had not stopped; wishing he had rushed the trail as always before. She felt the need of every excuse for daring the hazards of that climb. Cooney waited—and waited—morosely anticipating the corrective jerk of a rider who refused to guide him properly by pressing a rein across his neck. The shock was delayed. Cooney thrilled, aspiring joyously. He waited still another uncertain moment, bracing his slim legs. At last, with a quick indrawing of breath, he sprang up the only desirable trail in all the world, with an energy of scurrying hoofs that confined his rider's attention wholly to keeping her seat. She hardly dared look down even when the little horse stopped on a narrow ledge to breathe. Nor did Cooney tarry. Still fearful, perhaps, of that deadly backward jerk, he stopped but once again before the summit was reached. Doubtless he suspected that the most should be made of this probably fleeting mood of compliance in one who had hitherto shown herself inveterately hostile to his most cherished design.
Looking back over the ascent while the stanch little animal panted under her, Mrs. Laithe discovered that the thing had been worth while. The excitement had been pleasurable and the view was a thing to climb for. On the north the valley narrowed to a cañon, its granite sides muffled in clouds of soft green spruce. To the south it widened away until, beyond a broad plain, quickened with flying cloud shadows, a long, low-lying range of blue hills