Her Prairie Knight

by Bower, B M

  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 must," said Beatrice, simply, and shaded her eyes with her hand. For they had reached the top, and the prairie land lay all about them and below, lazily asleep in the sunshine.

  Keith halted and reached for his glass. "It's lucky I brought it along," he said. "I wasn't thinking, at the time; I just slung it over my shoulder from habit."

  "It's a good habit, I think," she answered, trying to smile; but her lips would only quiver, for the thought of her blame tortured her. "Can you see—anything?" she ventured wistfully.

  Keith shook his head, and continued his search. "There are so many little washouts and coulees, down there, you know. That's the trouble with a glass—it looks only on a level. But we'll find him. Don't you worry about that. He couldn't go far."

  "There isn't any real danger, is there?"

  "Oh, no," Keith said. "Except—" He bit his lip angrily.

  "Except what?" she demanded. "I'm not silly, Mr. Cameron—tell me."

  Keith took the glass from his eyes, looked at her, and paid her the compliment of deciding to tell her, just as if she were a man.

  "Nothing, only—he might run across a snake," he said. "Rattlers."

  Beatrice drew her breath hard, but she was plucky. Keith thought he had never seen a pluckier girl, and the West can rightfully boast brave women.

  She touched Rex with the whip. "Come," she commanded. "We must not stand here. It has been more than three hours."

  Keith put away the glass, and shot ahead to guide her.

  "We must have missed him, somewhere." The eyes of Beatrice were heavy with the weariness born of anxiety and suspense. They stood at the very edge of the steep bluff which rimmed the river. "You don't think he could have—" Her eyes, shuddering down at the mocking, blue-gray ripples, finished the thought.

  "He couldn't have got this far," said Keith. "His legs would give out, climbing up and down. We'll go back by a little different way, and look."

  "There's something moving, off there." Beatrice pointed with her whip.

  "That's a coyote," Keith told her; and then, seeing the look on her face: "They won't hurt any one. They're the rankest cowards on the range."

  "But the snakes—"

  "Oh, well, he might wander around for a week, and not run across one. We won't borrow trouble, anyway."

  "No," she agreed languidly. The sun was hot, and she had not had anything to eat since early breakfast, and the river mocked her parched throat with its cool glimmer below. She looked down at it wistfully, and Keith, watchful of every passing change in her face, led her back to where a cold, little spring crept from beneath a rock; there, lifting her down, he taught her how to drink from her hand.

  For himself, he threw himself down, pushed back his hat, and drank long and leisurely. A brown lock of hair, clinging softly together with moisture, fell from his forehead and trailed in the clear water, and Beatrice felt oddly tempted to push it back where it belonged. Standing quietly watching his picturesque figure, she forgot, for the moment, that a little boy was lost among these peaceful, sunbathed hills; she remembered only the man at her feet, drinking long, satisfying drafts, while the lock of hair floated in the spring.

  "Now we'l
l go on." He stood up and pushed back the wet lock, which trickled a tiny stream down his cheek, and settled his gray hat in place.

  Again that day he felt her foot in his palm, and the touch went over him in thrills. She was tired, he knew; her foot pressed heavier than it had before. He would have liked to take her in his arms and lift her bodily into the saddle, but he hardly dared think of such a blissful proceeding.

  He set the pace slower, however, and avoided the steepest places, and he halted often on the higher ground, to scan sharply the coulees. And so they searched, these two, together, and grew to know each other better than in a month of casual meetings. And the grass nodded, and the winds laughed, and the stern hills looked on, quizzically silent. If they knew aught of a small boy with a wealth of yellow curls and white collar, they gave no sign, and the two rode on, always seeking hopefully.

  A snake buzzed sharply on a gravelly slope, and Keith, sending Beatrice back a safe distance, took down his rope and gave battle, beating the sinister, gray-spotted coil with the loop until it straightened and was still. He dismounted then, and pinched off the rattles—nine, there were, and a "button"—and gave them to Beatrice, who handled them gingerly, and begged Keith to carry them for her. He slipped them into his pocket, and they went on, saying little.

  Back near the ranch they met Dick and Sir Redmond. They exchanged sharp looks, and Dick shook his head.

  "We haven't found him—yet. The boys are riding circle around the ranch; they're bound to find him, some of them, if we don't."

  "You had better go home," Sir Redmond told her, with a note of authority in his voice which set Keith's teeth on edge. "You look done to death; this is men's work."

  Beatrice bit her lip, and barely glanced at him. "I'll go—when Dorman is found. What shall we do now, Dick?"

  "Go down to the house and get some hot coffee, you two. We all snatched a bite to eat, and you need it. After that, you can look along the south side of the coulee, if you like."

  Beatrice obediently turned Rex toward home, and Keith followed. The ranch seemed very still and lonesome. Some chickens were rolling in the dust by the gate, and scattered, cackling indignantly, when they rode up. Off to the left a colt whinnied wistfully in a corral. Beatrice, riding listlessly to the house, stopped her horse with a jerk.

  "I heard—where is he?"

  Keith stopped Redcloud, and listened. Came a thumping noise, and a wail, not loud, but unmistakable.

  "Aunt-ie!"

  Beatrice was on the ground as soon as Keith, and together they ran to the place—the bunk-house. The thumping continued vigorously; evidently a small boy was kicking, with all his might, upon a closed door; it was not a new sound to the ears of Beatrice, since the arrival in America of her young nephew. Keith flung the door wide open, upsetting the small boy, who howled.

  Beatrice swooped down upon him and gathered him so close she came near choking him. "You darling. Oh, Dorman!"

  Dorman squirmed away from her. "I los' one shiny penny, Be'trice—and I couldn't open de door. Help me find my shiny penny."

  Keith picked him up and set him upon one square shoulder. "We'll take you up to your auntie, first thing, young man."

  "I want my one shiny penny. I want it!" Dorman showed symptoms of howling again.

  "We'll come back and find it. Your auntie wants you now, and grandmama."

  Beatrice, following after, was treated to a rather unusual spectacle; that of a tall, sun-browned fellow, with fringed chaps and brightly gleaming spurs, racing down the path; upon his shoulder, the wriggling form of an extremely disreputable small boy, with cobwebs in his curls, and his once white collar a dirty rag streaming out behind.

  CHAPTER 6. Mrs. Lansell's Lecture.

  When the excitement had somewhat abated, and Miss Hayes was convinced that her idol was really there, safe, and with his usual healthy appetite, and when a messenger had been started out to recall the searchers, Dorman was placed upon a chair before a select and attentive audience, and invited to explain, which he did.

  He had decided to borrow some little wheels from the bunkhouse, so he could ride his big, high pony home. Mr. Cameron had little wheels on his feet, and so did Uncle Dick, and all the mens. (The audience gravely nodded assent.) Well, and the knob wasn't too high when he went in, but when he tried to open the door to go out, it was away up there! (Dorman measured with his arm.) And he fell down, and all his shiny pennies rolled and rolled. And he looked and looked where they rolled, and when he counted, one was gone. So he looked and looked for the one shiny penny till he was tired to death. And so he climbed up high, into a funny bed on a shelf, and rested. And when he was rested he couldn't open the door, and he kicked and kicked, and then Be'trice came, and Mr. Cam'ron.

  "And you said you'd help me find my one penny," he reminded Keith, blinking solemnly at him from the chair. "And I want to shake hands wis your big, high pony. I'm going to buy him wis my six pennies. Be'trice said I could."

  Beatrice blushed, and Keith forgot where he was, for a minute, looking at her.

  "Come and find my one shiny penny," Dorman commanded, climbing down. "And I want Be'trice to come. Be'trice can always find things."

  "Beatrice cannot go," said his grandmother, who didn't much like the way Keith hovered near Beatrice, nor the look in his eyes. "Beatrice is tired."

  "I want Be'trice!" Dorman set up his everyday howl, which started the dogs barking outside. His guardian angel attempted to soothe him, but he would have none of her; he only howled the louder, and kicked.

  "There, there, honey, I'll go. Where's your hat?"

  "Beatrice, you had better stay in the house; you have done quite enough for one day." The tone of the mother suggested things.

  "It is imperative," said Beatrice, "for the peace and the well-being of this household, that Dorman find his penny without delay." When Beatrice adopted that lofty tone her mother was in the habit of saying nothing—and biding her time. Beatrice was so apt, if mere loftiness did not carry the day, to go a step further and flatly refuse to obey. Mrs. Lansell preferred to yield, rather than be openly defied.

  So the three went off to find the shiny penny—and in exactly thirty-five minutes they found it. I will not say that they could not have found it sooner, but, at any rate, they didn't, and they reached the house about two minutes behind Dick and Sir Redmond, which did not improve Sir Redmond's temper to speak of.

  After that, Keith did not need much urging from Dick to spend the rest of the afternoon at the "Pool" ranch. When he wanted to, Keith could be very nice indeed to people; he went a long way, that afternoon, toward making a friend of Miss Hayes; but Mrs. Lansell, who was one of those women who adhere to the theory of First Impressions, in capitals, continued to regard him as an incipient outlaw, who would, in time and under favorable conditions, reveal his true character, and vindicate her keen insight into human nature. There was one thing which Mrs. Lansell never forgave Keith Cameron, and that was the ruin of her watch, which refused to run while she was in Montana.

  That night, when Beatrice was just snuggling down into the delicious coolness of her pillow, she heard someone rap softly, but none the less imperatively, on her door. She opened one eye stealthily, to see her mother's pudgy form outlined in the feeble moonlight.

  "Beatrice, are you asleep?"

  Beatrice did not say yes, but she let her breath out carefully in a slumbrous sigh. It certainly sounded as if she were asleep.

  "Be-atrice!" The tone, though guarded, was insistent.

  The head of Beatrice moved slightly, and settled back into its little nest, for all the world like a dreaming, innocent baby.

  If she had not been the mother of Beatrice, Mrs. Lansell would probably have gone back to her room, and continued to bide her time; but the mother of Beatrice had learned a few things about the ways of a wilful girl. She went in, and closed the door carefully behind her. She did not wish to keep the whole house awake. Then she went straight to the bed, laid hand upon a white shoulder th
at gleamed in the moonlight, and gave a shake.

  "Beatrice, I want you to answer me when I speak."

  "M-m—did you—m-m—speak, mama?" Beatrice opened her eyes and closed them, opened them again for a minute longer, yawned daintily, and by these signs and tokens wandered back from dreamland obediently.

  Her mother sat down upon the edge of the bed, and the bed creaked. Also, Beatrice groaned inwardly; the time of reckoning was verily drawing near. She promptly closed her eyes again, and gave a sleepy sigh.

  "Beatrice, did you refuse Sir Redmond again?"

  "M-m—were you speaking—mama?"

  Mrs. Lansell, endeavoring to keep her temper, repeated the question.

  Beatrice began to feel that she was an abused girl. She lifted herself to her elbow, and thumped the pillow spitefully.

  "Again? Dear me, mama! I've never refused him once!"

  "You haven't accepted him once, either," her mother retorted; and Beatrice lay down again.

  "I do wish, Beatrice, you would look at the matter in a sensible light I'm sure I never would ask you to marry a man you could not care for. But Sir Redmond is young, and good-looking, and has birth and breeding, and money—no one can accuse him of being a fortune-hunter, I'm sure. I was asking Richard to-day, and he says Sir Redmond holds a large interest in the Northern Pool, and other English investors pay him a salary, besides, to look after their interests. I wouldn't be surprised if the holdings of both of you would be sufficient to control the business."

  Beatrice, not caring anything for business anyway, said nothing.

  "Any one can see the man's crazy for you. His sister says he never cared for a woman before in his life."

  "Of course," put in Beatrice sarcastically. "His sister followed him down to South Africa, and all around, and is in a position to know."

  "Any one can see he isn't a lady's man."

  "No—" Beatrice smiled reminiscently; "he certainly isn't."

  "And so he's in deadly earnest. And I'm positive he will make you a model husband."