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