The B. M. Bower Megapack

by B. M. Bower

  “And mine, I hope.”

  “Certainly.”

  “I think it’s rather absurd to stand here sparring, Mr. Cameron. You’ll begin to accuse me of ingratitude, and I’m as grateful as possible for what you did. Sir Redmond’s horse was too slow to keep up, or he would have been at hand, no doubt.”

  “And could have supplied part of the stage setting. Too bad he was behind.” Keith turned and readjusted the cinch on his saddle, though it was not loose enough to matter, and before he had finished Sir Redmond rode up.

  “Are you hurt, Beatrice?” His face was pale, and his eyes anxious.

  “Not at all. Mr. Cameron kindly helped me from the saddle in time to prevent an accident. I wish you’d thank him, Sir Redmond. I haven’t the words.”

  “You needn’t trouble,” said Keith hastily, getting into the saddle. “I’ll go down after Goldie. You can easily find the camp, I guess, without a pilot.” Then he galloped away and left them, and would not look back; if he had done so, he would have seen Beatrice’s eyes following him remorsefully. Also, he would have seen Sir Redmond glare after him jealously; for Sir Redmond was not in a position to know that their tete-a-tete had not been a pleasant one, and no man likes to have another fellow save the life of a woman he loves, while he himself is limping painfully up from the rear.

  However, the woman he loved was very gracious to him that day, and for many days, and Keith Cameron held himself aloof during the rest of the trip, which should have contented Sir Redmond.

  CHAPTER 8

  Dorman Plays Cupid

  Dorman toiled up the steps, his straw hat perilously near to slipping down his back, his face like a large, red beet, and his hands vainly trying to reach around a baking-powder can which the Chinaman cook had given him.

  He marched straight to where Beatrice was lying in the hammock. If she had been older, or younger, or a plain young woman, one might say that Beatrice was sulking in the hammock, for she had not spoken anything but “yes” and “no” to her mother for an hour, and she had only spoken those two words occasionally, when duty demanded it. For one thing, Sir Redmond was absent, and had been for two weeks, and Beatrice was beginning to miss him dreadfully. To beguile the time, she had ridden, every day, long miles into the hills. Three times she had met Keith Cameron, also riding alone in the hills, and she had endeavored to amuse herself with him, after her own inimitable fashion, and with more or less success. The trouble was, that sometimes Keith seemed to be amusing himself with her, which was not pleasing to a girl like Beatrice. At any rate, he proved himself quite able to play the game of Give and Take, so that the conscience of Beatrice was at ease; no one could call her pastime a slaughter of the innocents, surely, when the fellow stood his ground like that. It was more a fencing-bout, and Beatrice enjoyed it very much; she told herself that the reason she enjoyed talking with Keith was because he was not always getting hurt, like Sir Redmond—or, if he did, he kept his feelings to himself, and went boldly on with the game. Item: Beatrice had reversed her decision that Keith was vain, though she still felt tempted, at times, to resort to “making faces”—when she was worsted, that was.

  To return to this particular day of sulking; Rex had cast a shoe, and lamed himself just enough to prevent her riding, and so Beatrice was having a dull day of it in the house. Besides, her mother had just finished talking to her for her good, which was enough to send an angel into the sulks—and Beatrice lacked a good deal of being an angel.

  Dorman laid his baking-powder can confidingly in his divinity’s lap. “Be’trice, I did get some grasshoppers; you said I couldn’t. And you wouldn’t go fishin’, ’cause you didn’t like to take Uncle Dick’s make-m’lieve flies, so I got some really ones, Be’trice, that’ll wiggle dere own self.”

  “Oh, dear me! It’s too hot, Dorman.”

  “’Tisn’t, Be’trice It’s dest as cool—and by de brook it’s awf-lly cold. Come, Be’trice!” He pulled at the smart little pink ruffles on her skirt.

  “I’m too sleepy, hon.”

  “You can sleep by de brook, Be’trice. I’ll let you,” he promised generously, “’cept when I need anudder grasshopper; nen I’ll wake you up.”

  “Wait till tomorrow. I don’t believe the fish are hungry today. Don’t tear my skirt to pieces, Dorman!”

  Dorman began to whine. He had never found his divinity in so unlovely a mood. “I want to go now! Dey are too hungry, Be’trice! Looey Sam is goin’ to fry my fishes for dinner, to s’prise auntie. Come, Be’trice!”

  “Why don’t you go with the child, Beatrice? You grow more selfish every day.” Mrs. Lansell could not endure selfishness—in others. “You know he will not give us any peace until you do.”

  Dorman instantly proceeded to make good his grandmother’s prophecy, and wept so that one could hear him a mile.

  “Oh, dear me! Be still, Dorman—your auntie has a headache. Well, get your rod, if you know where it is—which I doubt.” Beatrice flounced out of the hammock and got her hat, one of those floppy white things, fluffed with thin, white stuff, till they look like nothing so much as a wisp of cloud, with ribbons to moor it to her head and keep it from sailing off to join its brothers in the sky.

  Down by the creek, where the willows nodded to their own reflections in the still places, it was cool and sweet scented, and Beatrice forgot her grievances, and was not sorry she had come.

  (It was at about this time that a tall young fellow, two miles down the coulee, put away his field glass and went off to saddle his horse.)

  “Don’t run ahead so, Dorman,” Beatrice cautioned. To her had been given the doubtful honor of carrying the baking-powder can of grasshoppers. Even divinities must make themselves useful to man.

  “Why, Be’trice?” Dorman swished his rod in unpleasant proximity to his divinity’s head.

  “Because, honey”—Beatrice dodged—“you might step on a snake, a rattlesnake, that would bite you.”

  “How would it bite, Be’trice?”

  “With its teeth, of course; long, wicked teeth, with poison on them.”

  “I saw one when I was ridin’ on a horse wis Uncle Dick. It kept windin’ up till it was round, and it growled wis its tail, Be’trice. And Uncle Dick chased it, and nen it unwinded itself and creeped under a big rock. It didn’t bite once—and I didn’t see any teeth to it.”

  “Carry your rod still, Dorman. Are you trying to knock my hat off my head? Rattlesnakes have teeth, hon, whether you saw them or not. I saw a great, long one that day we thought you were lost. Mr. Cameron killed it with his rope. I’m sure it had teeth.”

  “Did it growl, Be’trice? Tell me how it went.”

  “Like this, hon.” Beatrice parted her lips ever so little, and a snake buzzed at Dorman’s feet. He gave a yell of terror, and backed ingloriously.

  “You see, honey, if that had been really a snake, it would have bitten you. Never mind, dear—it was only I.”

  Dorman was some time believing this astonishing statement. “How did you growl by my feet, Be’trice? Show me again.”

  Beatrice, who had learned some things at school which were not included in the curriculum, repeated the performance, while Dorman watched her with eyes and mouth at their widest. Like some older members of his sex, he was discovering new witcheries about his divinity every day.

  “Well, Be’trice!” He gave a long gasp of ecstasy. “I don’t see how can you do it? Can’t I do it, Be’trice?”

  “I’m afraid not, honey—you’d have to learn. There was a queer French girl at school, who could do the strangest things, Dorman—like fairy tales, almost. And she taught me to throw my voice different places, and mimic sounds, when we should have been at our lessons. Listen, hon. This is how a little lamb cries, when he is lost.… And this is what a hungry kittie says, when she is away up in a tree, and is afraid to come down.”

  Dorman danced all around his divinity, and forgot about the fish—until Beatrice found it in her heart to regret her rash revelation of hi
therto undreamed-of powers of entertainment.

  “Not another sound, Dorman,” she declared at length, with the firmness of despair. “No, I will not be a lost lamb another once. No, nor a hungry kittie, either—nor a snake, or anything. If you are not going to fish, I shall go straight back to the house.”

  Dorman sighed heavily, and permitted his divinity to fasten a small grasshopper to his hook.

  “We’ll go a bit farther, dear, down under those great trees. And you must not speak a word, remember, or the fish will all run away.”

  When she had settled him in a likely place, and the rapt patience of the born angler had folded him close, she disposed herself comfortably in the thick grass, her back against a tree, and took up the shuttle of fancy to weave a wonderful daydream, as beautiful, intangible as the lacy, summer clouds over her head.

  A man rode quietly over the grass and stopped two rods away, that he might fill his hungry eyes with the delicious loveliness of his Heart’s Desire.

  “Got a bite yet?”

  Dorman turned and wrinkled his nose, by way of welcome, and shook his head vaguely, as though he might tell of several unimportant nibbles, if it were worth the effort.

  Beatrice sat a bit straighter, and dexterously whisked some pink ruffles down over two distracting ankles, and hoped Keith had not taken notice of them. He had, though; trust a man for that!

  Keith dismounted, dropped the reins to the ground, and came and laid himself down in the grass beside his Heart’s Desire, and Beatrice noticed how tall he was, and slim and strong.

  “How did you know we were here?” she wanted to know, with lifted eyebrows.

  Keith wondered if there was a welcome behind that sweet, indifferent face. He never could be sure of anything in Beatrice’s face, because it never was alike twice, it seemed to him—and if it spoke welcome for a second, the next there was only raillery, or something equally unsatisfying.

  “I saw you from the trail,” he answered promptly, evidently not thinking it wise to mention the fieldglass. And then: “Is Dick at home?” Not that he wanted Dick—but a fellow, even when he is in the last stages of love, feels need of an excuse sometimes.

  “No—we women are alone today. There isn’t a man on the place, except Looey Sam, and he doesn’t count.”

  Dorman squirmed around till he could look at the two, and his eyebrows were tied in a knot. “I wish, Be’trice, you wouldn’t talk, ’less you whisper. De fishes won’t bite a bit.”

  “All right, honey—we won’t.”

  Dorman turned back to his fishing with a long breath of relief. His divinity never broke a promise, if she could help it.

  If Dorman Hayes had been Cupid himself, he could not have hit upon a more impish arrangement than that. To place a girl like Beatrice beside a fellow like Keith—a fellow who is tall, and browned, and extremely good-looking, and who has hazel eyes with a laugh in them always—a fellow, moreover, who is very much in love and very much in earnest about it—and condemn him to silence, or to whispers!

  Keith took advantage of the edict, and moved closer, so that he could whisper in comfort—and be nearer his Heart’s Desire. He lay with his head propped upon his hand, and his elbow digging into the sod and getting grass-stains on his shirt sleeve, for the day was too warm for a coat. Beatrice, looking down at him, observed that his forearm, between his glove and wrist-band, was as white and smooth as her own. It is characteristic of a cowboy to have a face brown as an Indian, and hands girlishly white and soft.

  “I haven’t had a glimpse of you for a week—not since I met you down by the river. Where have you been?” he whispered.

  “Here. Rex went lame, and Dick wouldn’t let me ride any other horse, since that day Goldie bolted—and so the hills have called in vain. I’ve stayed at home and made quantities of Duchesse lace—I almost finished a love of a center piece—and mama thinks I have reformed. But Rex is better, and tomorrow I’m going somewhere.”

  “Better help me hunt some horses that have been running down Lost Canyon way. I’m going to look for them tomorrow,” Keith suggested, as calmly as was compatible with his eagerness and his method of speech. I doubt if any man can whisper things to a girl he loves, and do it calmly. I know Keith’s heart was pounding.

  “I shall probably ride in the opposite direction,” Beatrice told him wickedly. She wondered if he thought she would run at his beck.

  “I never saw you in this dress before,” Keith murmured, his eyes caressing.

  “No? You may never again,” she said. “I have so many things to wear out, you know.”

  “I like it,” he declared, as emphatically as he could, and whisper. “It is just the color of your cheeks, after the wind has been kissing them a while.”

  “Fancy a cowboy saying pretty things like that!”

  Beatrice’s cheeks did not wait for the wind to kiss them pink.

  “Ya-as, only fawncy, ye knaw.” His eyes were daringly mocking.

  “For shame, Mr. Cameron! Sir Redmond would not mimic your speech.”

  “Good reason why; he couldn’t, not if he tried a thousand years.”

  Beatrice knew this was the truth, so she fell back upon dignity.

  “We will not discuss that subject, I think.”

  “I don’t want to, anyway. I know another subject a million times more interesting than Sir Redmond.”

  “Indeed!” Beatrice’s eyebrows were at their highest. “And what is it, then?”

  “You!” Keith caught her hand; his eyes compelled her.

  “I think,” said Beatrice, drawing her hand away, “we will not discuss that subject, either.”

  “Why?” Keith’s eyes continued to woo.

  “Because.”

  It occurred to Beatrice that an unsophisticated girl might easily think Keith in earnest, with that look in his eyes.

  Dorman, scowling at them over his shoulder, unconsciously did his divinity a service. Beatrice pursed her lips in a way that drove Keith nearly wild, and took up the weapon of silence.

  “You said you women are alone—where is milord?” Keith began again, after two minutes of lying there watching her.

  “Sir Redmond is in Helena, on business. He’s been making arrangements to lease a lot of land.”

  “Ah-h!” Keith snapped a twig off a dead willow.

  “We look for him home today, and Dick drove in to meet the train.”

  “So the Pool has gone to leasing land?” The laugh had gone out of Keith’s eyes; they were clear and keen.

  “Yes—the plan is to lease the Pine Ridge country, and fence it. I suppose you know where that is.”

  “I ought to,” Keith said quietly. “It’s funny Dick never mentioned it.”

  “It isn’t Dick’s idea,” Beatrice told him. “It was Sir Redmond’s. Dick is rather angry, I think, and came near quarreling with Sir Redmond about it. But English capital controls the Pool, you know, and Sir Redmond controls the English capital, so he can adopt whatever policy he chooses. The way he explained the thing to me, it seems a splendid plan—don’t you think so?”

  “Yes.” Keith’s tone was not quite what he meant it to be; he did not intend it to be ironical, as it was. “It’s a snap for the Pool, all right. It gives them a cinch on the best of the range, and all the water. I didn’t give milord credit for such business sagacity.”

  Beatrice leaned over that she might read his eyes, but Keith turned his face away. In the shock of what he had just learned, he was, at the moment, not the lover; he was the small cattleman who is being forced out of the business by the octopus of combined capital. It was not less bitter that the woman he loved was one of the tentacles reaching out to crush him. And they could do it; they—the whole affair resolved itself into a very simple scheme, to Keith. The gauntlet had been thrown down—because of this girl beside him. It was not so much business acumen as it was the antagonism of a rival that had prompted the move. Keith squared his shoulders, and mentally took up the gauntlet. He might lose in the ran
ge fight, but he would win the girl, if it were in the power of love to do it.

  “Why that tone? I hope it isn’t—will it inconvenience you?”

  “Oh, no. No, not at all. No—” Keith seemed to forget that a superabundance of negatives breeds suspicion of sincerity.

  “I’m afraid that means that it will. And I’m sure Sir Redmond never meant—”

  “I believe that kid has got a bite at last,” Keith interrupted, getting up. “Let me take hold, there, Dorman; you’ll be in the creek yourself in a second.” He landed a four-inch fish, carefully rebaited the hook, cast the line into a promising eddy, gave the rod over to Dorman, and went back to Beatrice, who had been watching him with troubled eyes.

  “Mr. Cameron, if I had known—” Beatrice was good-hearted, if she was fond of playing with a man’s heart.

  “I hope you’re not letting that business worry you, Miss Lansell. You remind me of a painting I saw once in Boston. It was called June.”

  “But this is August, so I don’t apply. Isn’t there some way you—”

  “Did you hear about that train-robbery up the line last week?” Keith settled himself luxuriously upon his back, with his hands clasped under his head, and his hat tipped down over his eyes—but not enough to prevent him from watching his Heart’s Desire. And in his eyes laughter—and something sweeter—lurked. If Sir Redmond had wealth to fight with, Keith’s weapon was far and away more dangerous, for it was the irresistible love of a masterful man—the love that sweeps obstacles away like straws.

  “I am not interested 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—”