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