The Son of his Father. Cullum Ridgwell
wide, wondering eyes that were half inclined to resentment. She was not accustomed to being ordered about in this cavalier fashion. She had no intention of being incontinently swept off her feet.
"Thanks," she said, with an assumption of hauteur. "If you'll untie Sunset I'll ride home."
"Ride home? Say, you're joking. Why, you can't ride Sunset with that gash in his frog. Say, you couldn't be so cruel. Think of the poor fellow silently suffering. Think of the mute anguish he would endure at each step. It—it would be a crime, an outrage, a—a——" He broke off, his eyes twinkling merrily.
The girl wanted to be annoyed. She told herself she was annoyed, but she nevertheless began to laugh, and Gordon knew he was to have his way.
"I really couldn't think of accepting your—— Besides, you weren't going to Buffalo Point. You know you weren't."
"Do I?" Gordon's eyes were blankly inquiring. "Now how on earth do I know where I was going? Say, I guess it's true I had in my mind a vision of the glinting summer sun, tinting the coal heaps with its wonderful, golden, ripening rays—though I guess it would be some work ripening stove coal—but as to my ever getting there—well, that just depended on the trail I happened to take. As I said, I'm a stranger. And I may as well admit right here that I've a hobby getting mussed up with wrong trails."
The girl's laughter dispelled her last effort at dignity.
"I knew you were a stranger. You see, I get to know everybody here—by sight."
Gordon made a gesture of annoyance.
"There," he exclaimed in self-disgust, "I ought to have thought of that before. How on earth could I expect you to ride in a stranger's buggy, with said stranger on the business end of the lines? Then the hills are so near. Why, you might be spirited off goodness knows where, and your loving relatives never, never hear of you no more, and—— Say, we can easily fix that though. My name's—Van Henslaer. Gordon Van Henslaer from New York. Now if you tell me—what's the matter?"
A merry peal of laughter had greeted his announcement, and Gordon looked on in pretended amazement, waiting for her mirth to subside.
"Oh dear, oh dear," the girl cried at last. "I might have known. Say, of course I ought to have known. You came here yesterday on the train—by mistake. You——"
"That's so. I'd booked through to Seattle, but—some interfering pack of fools guessed I'd made a—mistake,"
The girl nodded. Her pretty eyes were still dancing with merriment.
"Father came by the same train, and told me of someone who got mixed up in—in a fight, and they threw——"
"Don't say another word," Gordon cried hurriedly. "I'm—I'm the man. And your father is——?"
"Mallinsbee—Silas Mallinsbee!"
"Then you are Hazel Mallinsbee."
"How do you know my first name?"
"Why, I saw you in town, and the livery man told me you were 'Miss Hazel.' Say, this is bully. Now we aren't strangers, and you can ride in my buggy without any question. Jump right in, and I'll drive you—where is it?"
Hazel Mallinsbee obeyed without further demur. She sprang into the vehicle, and Gordon promptly followed. The next moment they were moving on at a steady, sober pace.
"It's Buffalo Point," the girl directed. "It's only four miles. Then you can go on and enjoy your beautiful pathetic picture of the coal workings. But you won't have much time if we travel at this gait," she added slyly.
Gordon shook his head.
"It's Sunset," he said. "We must consider his poor foot."
There was laughter in Hazel's eyes as she sighed.
"Poor Sunset. Perhaps—you're right."
"Without a doubt," Gordon laughed. "He might get blood poisoning, or cancer, or dyspepsia, or something if we bustled him."
Hazel pointed a branching trail to the north.
"That's the trail," she said. "Father's at home. He'll be real glad to see you. Say, you know father ought to know better—at his age. He—he just loves a scrap. He was telling me about you, and saying how you 'hammered'—that's the word he used—the 'sharp.' He was most upset that the train crew spoiled the finish. You know father's a great scallywag. I don't believe he thinks he's a day over twenty. It's—it's dreadful—with a grown-up daughter. He's—just a great big boy for all his gray hair. You should just see him out on the range. He's got all the youngsters left standing. It must be grand to grow old like he does."
Gordon listened to the girl's rich tones, and the enthusiasm lying behind her words, and somehow the whole situation seemed unreal. Here he was driving one of the most perfectly delightful girls he had ever met to her home, within twenty-four hours of his absurd arrival in a still more absurd town. Nor was she any mere country girl. Her whole style spoke of an education obtained at one of the great schools in the East. Her costume might have been tailored on Fifth Avenue, New York. Yet here she was living the life of the wonderful sunlit prairie, the daughter of an obscure rancher in the foothills of the Rockies.
"Say, your father is just a bully feller," he agreed quickly. "He didn't know me from—a grasshopper, but he did me all sorts of a good service. It don't matter what it was. But it was one of those things which between men count a whole heap."
The girl's enthusiasm waxed.
"Father's just as good as—as he's clever. But," she added tenderly, "he's a great scallywag. Oh dear, he'll never grow up." A few minutes later she pointed quickly ahead with one gauntleted hand.
"That's Buffalo Point," she said. "There where that house is. That's our house, and beyond it, half a mile, you can see the telegraph poles of the railroad track."
Gordon gazed ahead. They still had a good mile to go. The lonely house fixed his attention.
"Say, isn't there a village?" he inquired. "Buffalo Point?"
The girl shook her head.
"No. Just that little frame house of ours. Father had it built as—a sort of office. You see, we're both working hard on his land scheme. You see, it's—it's our hobby, the same as losing trails is yours."
Gordon laughed.
"That's plumb spoiled my day. I'd forgotten the land business. Now it's all come over me like a chill, like the drip of an ice wagon down the back of my neck. I s'pose there'll always be land around, and we've always got to have coal. It seems a pity, doesn't it. Say, there hasn't been a soul I've met in twenty-four hours, but they've been crazy on—on town sites. They're most ridiculous things, town sites. Four pegs and four imaginary lines, a deal of grass with a substrata of crawly things. And for that men would scrap, and cheat, and rob, and—and graft. It's—a wonder."
Hazel Mallinsbee checked her inclination to laugh again. Her eyes were gazing ahead at the little frame house, and they grew wistfully serious.
"It isn't the land," she said simply. "The scrap, and cheat, and rob, and graft, are right. But it's the fight for fortune. Fortune?" she smiled. "Fortune means everything to a modern man. To some women, too, but not quite in the way it does to a man. You see, in olden days competition took a different form. I don't know if, in spite of what folks say about the savagery of old times, they weren't more honest and wholesome than they are now. However, nature's got to compete for something. Human nature's got to beat someone. Life is just one incessant rivalry. Well, in old times it took the form of bloodshed and war, when men counted with pride the tally of their victories. Now we point with pride to our civilization, and gaze back in pity upon our benighted forefathers. Instead of bloodshed, killing, fighting, massacring and all the old bad habits of those who came before us, we point our civilization by lying, cheating, robbing and grafting."
Gordon smiled.
"Put that way it sounds as though the old folks were