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