Her Prairie Knight, Lonesome Land & The Uphill Climb: Complete Western Trilogy. B. M. Bower
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.