CHAPTER 9. MISS DARLING ARRIVES
Miss Messiter clung to civilization enough, at least, to prefer that herchambermaid should be a woman rather than a Chinese. It did not suit herpreconceived idea of the proper thing that Lee Ming should sweep floors,dust bric-a-brac, and make the beds. To see him slosh-sloshing aroundin his felt slippers made her homesick for Kalamazoo. There were otherreasons why the proprieties would be better served by having anotherwoman about the place; reasons that had to do with the chaperone systemthat even in the uncombed West make its claims upon unmarriedyoung women of respectability. She had with her for the presentfourteen-year-old Ida Henderson, but this arrangement was merelytemporary.
Wherefore on the morning after her arrival Helen had sent two lettersback to "the States." One of these had been to Mrs. Winslow, a widow offifty-five, inviting her to come out on a business basis as housekeeperof the Lazy D. The buxom widow had loved Helen since she had been atoddling baby, and her reply was immediate and enthusiastic. Eightdays later she had reported in person. The second letter bore theaffectionate address of Nora Darling, Detroit, Michigan. This also intime bore fruit at the ranch in a manner worthy of special mention.
It was the fourth day after Ned Bannister had been carried back to theLazy D that Helen Messiter came out to the porch of the house with aletter in her hand. She found her foreman sitting on the steps waitingfor her, but he got up as soon as he heard the fall of her lightfootsteps behind him.
"You sent for me, ma'am?" he asked, hat in hand.
"Yes; I want you to drive into Gimlet Butte and bring back a person whomyou'll find at the Elk House waiting for you. I had rather you would goyourself, because I know you're reliable."
"Thank you, ma'am. How will I know him?"
"It's a woman--a spinster. She's coming to help Mrs. Winslow. Inquirefor Miss Darling. She isn't used to jolting two days in a rig, but Iknow you will be careful of her."
"I'll surely be as careful of the old lady as if she was my own mother."
The mistress of the ranch smothered a desire to laugh.
"I'm sure you will. At her age she may need a good deal of care. Becertain you take rug enough."
"I'll take care of her the best I know how. Expect she's likelyrheumatic, but I'll wrop her up till she looks like a Cheyenne squawwhen tourist is trying to get a free shoot at her with camera."
"Please do. I want her to get a good impression of Wyoming so that shewill stay. I don' know about the rheumatism, but you might ask her."
There were pinpoints of merriment behind the guileless innocence of hereyes, but they came to the surface only after the foreman had departed.
McWilliams ordered a team of young horse hitched, and presently set outon his two day; journey to Gimlet Butte. He reached that town in goodseason, left the team at a corral and walked back to the Elk House.The white dust of the plains was heavy on him, from the bandannathat loosely embraced the brown throat above the flannel shirt to theencrusted boots but through it the good humor of his tanned face smiledfraternally on a young woman he passes at the entrance to the hotel. Hergay smile met his cordially, and she was still in his mind while heran his eye down the register in search of the name he wanted. Thereit was--Miss Nora Darling, Detroit, Michigan--in the neatest of littleround letters, under date of the previous day's arrivals.
"Is Miss Darling in?" asked McWilliams of the half-grown son of thelandlady who served in lieu of clerk and porter.
"Nope! Went out a little while ago. Said to tell anybody to wait thatasked for her."
Mac nodded, relieved to find that duty had postponed itself long enoughfor him to pursue the friendly smile that had not been wasted on hima few seconds before. He strolled out to the porch and decided at oncethat he needed a cigar more than anything else on earth. He was helpedto a realization of his need by seeing the owner of the smile disappearin an adjoining drug store.
She was beginning on a nut sundae when the puncher drifted in. Shecontinued to devote even her eyes to its consumption, while the foremanopened a casual conversation with the drug clerk and lit his cigar.
"How are things coming in Gimlet Butte?" he asked, by way of prolonginghis stay rather than out of desire for information.
Yes, she certainly had the longest, softest lashes he had ever seen, andthe ripest of cherry lips, behind the smiling depths of which sparkledtwo rows of tiny pearls. He wished she would look at HIM and smileagain. There wasn't any use trying to melt a sundae with it, anyhow.
"Sure, it's a good year on the range and the price of cows jumping," heheard his sub-conscious self make answer to the patronizing inquiries ofhim of the "boiled" shirt.
"Funny how pretty hair of that color was especially when there was somuch of it. You might call it a sort of coppery gold where the littlecurls escaped in tendrils and ran wild. A fellow--"
"Yes, I reckon most of the boys will drop around to the Fourth of Julycelebration. Got to cut loose once in a while, y'u know."
A shy glance shot him and set him a-tingle with a queer delight.Gracious, what pretty dark velvety lashes she had!
She was rising already, and as she paid for the ice cream that innocentgaze smote him again with the brightest of Irish eyes conceivable. Itlingered for just a ponderable sunlit moment or him. She had smiled oncemore.
After a decent interval Mac pursued his petit charmer to the hotel.She was seated on the porch reading a magazine, and was absorbedlyunconscious of him when he passed. For a few awkward moments he hungaround the office, then returned to the porch and took the chair mostdistant from her. He had sat there a long ten minutes before she lether hands and the magazine fall into her lap and demurely gave him hischance.
"Can you tell me how far it is to the Lazy D ranch?"
"Seventy-two miles as the crow flies, ma'am."
"Thank you."
The conversation threatened to die before it was well born. DesperatelyMcWilliams tried to think of something to say to keep it alive withoutbeing too bold.
"If y'u were thinking of traveling out that way I could give y'u a lift.I just came in to get another lady--an old lady that has just come tothis country."
"Thank you, but I'm expecting a conveyance to meet me here. You didn'thappen to pass one on the way, I suppose?"
"No, I didn't. What ranch were y'u going to, ma'am?
"Miss Messiter's--the Lazy D."
A suspicion began to penetrate the foreman's brain. "Y'u ain't MissDarling?"
"What makes you so sure I'm not?" she asked, tilting her dimpled chintoward him aggressively.
"Y'u're too young," he protested, helplessly.
"I'm no younger than you are," came her quick, indignant retort.
Thus boldly accused of his youth, the foreman blushed. "I didn't meanthat. Miss Messiter said she was an old lady--"
"You needn't tell fibs about it. She couldn't have said anything of thekind. Who are you, anyhow?" the girl demanded, with spirit.
"I'm the foreman of the Lazy D, come to get Miss Darling. My name isMcWilliams--Jim McWilliams."
"I don't need your first name, Mr. McWilliams," she assured him,sweetly. "And will you please tell me why you have kept me waiting heremore than thirty hours?"
"Miss Messiter didn't get your letter in time. Y'u see, we don't getmail every day at the Lazy D," he explained, the while he hopefullywondered just when she was going to need his last name.
"I don't see why you don't go after your mail every day at least,especially when Miss Messiter was expecting me. To leave me waitinghere thirty hours--I'll not stand it. When does the next train leave forDetroit?" she asked, imperiously.
The situation seemed to call for diplomacy, and Jim McWilliams moved toa nearer chair. "I'm right sorry it happened, ma'am, and I'll bet MissMessiter is, too. Y'u see, we been awful busy one way and 'nother, and Iplumb neglected to send one of the boys to the post-office."
"Why didn't one of them walk over after supper?" she demanded, severely.
He curbed the smile th
at was twitching at his facial muscles.
"Well, o' course it ain't so far,--only forty-three miles--still--"
"Forty-three miles to the post-office?"
"Yes, ma'am, only forty-three. If you'll excuse me this time--"
"Is it really forty-three?"
He saw that her sudden smile had brought out the dimples in the ovalface and that her petulance had been swept away by his astoundinginformation.
"Forty-three, sure as shootin', except twict a week when it comes toSlauson's, and that's only twenty miles," he assured her. "Used to beseventy-two, but the Government got busy with its rural free delivery,and now we get it right at our doors."
"You must have big doors," she laughed.
"All out o' doors," he punned. "Y'u see, our house is under our hat, andlike as not that's twenty miles from the ranchhouse when night falls."
"Dear me!" She swept his graceful figure sarcastically. "And, of course,twenty miles from a brush, too."
He laughed with deep delight at her thrust, for the warm youth in himdid not ask for pointed wit on the part of a young woman so attractiveand with a manner so delightfully provoking.
"I expaict I have gathered up some scenery on the journey. I'll go brushit off and get ready for supper. I'd admire to sit beside y'u and passthe butter and the hash if y'u don't object. Y'u see, I don't often meetup with ladies, and I'd ought to improve my table manners when I geta chanct with one so much older than I am and o' course so much moreexperienced."
"I see you don't intend to pass any honey with the hash," she flashed,with a glimpse of the pearls.
"DIDN'T y'u say y'u was older than me? I believe I've plumb forgot howold y'u said y'u was, Miss Darling."
"Your memory's such a sieve it wouldn't be worth while telling you.After you've been to school a while longer maybe I'll try you again."
"Some ladies like 'em young," he suggested, amiably.
"But full grown," she amended.
"Do y'u judge by my looks or my ways?" he inquired, anxiously.
"By both."
"That's right strange," he mused aloud. "For judging by some of yourways you're the spinster Miss Messiter was telling me about, but judgingby your looks y'u're only the prettiest and sassiest twenty-year-old inWyoming."
And with this shot he fled, to see what transformation he could effectwith the aid of a whiskbroom, a tin pan of alkali water and a rollertowel.
When she met him at the supper table her first question was, "Did MissMessiter say I was an old maid?"
"Sho! I wouldn't let that trouble me if I was y'u. A woman ain't anyolder than she looks. Your age don't show to speak of."
"But did she?"
"I reckon she laid a trap for me and I shoved my paw in. She wanted togive me a pleasant surprise."
"Oh!"
"Don't y'u grow anxious about being an old maid. There ain't any inWyoming to speak of. If y'u like I'll tell the boys you're worriedand some of them will be Johnnie-on-the-Spot. They're awful gallant,cowpunchers are."
"Some of them may be," she differed. "If you want to know I'm justtwenty-one."
He sawed industriously at his steak. "Y'u don't say! Just old enough tovote--like this steer was before they massacreed him."
She gave him one look, and thereafter punished him with silence.
They left Gimlet Butte early next morning and reached the Lazy D shortlyafter noon on the succeeding day. McWilliams understood perfectly thatstrenuous competition would inevitably ensue as soon as the Lazy Dbeheld the attraction he had brought into their midst. Nor did he needa phrenologist to tell him that Nora was a born flirt and that her shyslant glances were meant to penetrate tough hides to tender hearts.But this did not discourage him, and he set about making his individualimpression while he had her all to himself. He wasn't at all sure howdeep this went, but he had the satisfaction of hearing his first name,the one she had told him she had no need of, fall tentatively from herpretty lips before the other boys caught a glimpse of her.
Shortly after his arrival at the ranch Mac went to make his report tohis mistress of some business matters connected with the trip.
"I see you got back safely with the old lady," she laughed when shecaught sight of him.
His look reproached her. "Y'u said a spinster."
"But it was you that insisted on the rheumatism. By the way, did you askher about it?"
"We didn't get that far," he parried.
"Oh! How far did you get?" She perched herself on the porch railing andmocked him with her friendly eyes. Her heart was light within her andshe was ready for anything in the way of fun, for the doctor had justpronounced her patient out of danger if he took proper care of himself.
"About as fur as I got with y'u, ma'am," he audaciously retorted.
"We might disagree as to how far that is," she flung back gayly withheightened color.
"No, ma'am, I don't think we would."
"But, gracious! You're not a Mormon. You don't want us both, do you?"she demanded, her eyes sparkling with the exhilaration of the tilt.
"Could I get either one of y'u, do y'u reckon? That's what's worryingme."
"I see, and so you intend to keep us both on the string."
His joyous laughter echoed hers. "I expaict y'u would call thatpresumption or some other dictionary word, wouldn't y'u?"
"In anybody else perhaps, but surely not in Mr. McWilliams."
"I'm awful glad to be trotting in a class by myself."
"And you'll let us know when you have made your mind up which of us itis to be?"
"Well, mine ain't the only mind that has to be made up," he drawled.
She took this up gleefully. "I can't answer for Nora, but I'll jump atthe chance--if you decide to give it to me."
He laughed delightedly into the hat he was momentarily expecting to puton. "I'll mill it over a spell and let y'u know, ma'am."
"Yes, think it over from all points of view. Of course she is prettier,but then I'm not afflicted with rheumatism and probably wouldn't flirtas much afterward. I have a good temper, too, as a rule, but then so hasNora."
"Oh, she's prettier, is she?" With boyish audacity he grinned at her.
"What do you think?"
He shook his head. "I'll have to go to the foot of the class on that,ma'am. Give me an easier one."
"I'll have to choose another subject then. What did you do about thatbunch of Circle 66 cows you looked at on your way in?"
They discussed business for a few minutes, after which she went back toher patient and he to his work.
"Ain't she a straight-up little gentleman for fair?" the foreman askedhimself in rhetorical and exuberant question, slapping his hat againsthis leg as he strode toward the corral. "Think of her coming at me likeshe did, the blamed little thoroughbred. Y'u bet she knows me down tothe ground and how sudden I got over any fool notions I might a-startedto get in my cocoanut. But the way she came back at me, quick aslightning and then some, pretendin' all that foolishness and knowin' allthe time I'd savez the game."
Both McWilliams and his mistress had guessed right in their surmise asto Nora Darling's popularity in the cow country. She made an immediateand pronounced hit. It was astonishing how many errands the men found totake them to "the house," as they called the building where the mistressof the ranch dwelt. Bannister served for a time as an excellentexcuse. Judging from the number of the inquiries which the men foundit necessary to make as to his progress, Helen would have guessedhim exceedingly popular with her riders. Having a sense of humor, shementioned this to McWilliams one day.
He laughed, and tried to turn it into a compliment to his mistress. Butshe would have none of it.
"I know better, sir. They don't come here to see me. Nora is theattraction, and I have sense enough to know it. My nose is quite out ofjoint," she laughed.
Mac looked with gay earnestness at the feature she had mentioned."There's a heap of difference in noses," he murmured, apparently aproposof nothing.
"That's
another way of telling me that Nora's pug is the sweetest thingyou ever saw," she charged.
"I ain't half such a bad actor as some of the boys," he deprecated.
"Meaning in what way?"
"The Nora Darling way."
He pronounced her name so much as if it were a caress that his mistresslaughed, and he joined in it.
"It's your fickleness that is breaking my heart, though I knew I waslost as soon as I saw your beatific look on the day you got back withNora. The first week I came none of you could do enough for me. Now it'sall Nora, darling." She mimicked gayly his intonation.
"Well, ma'am, it's this way," explained the foreman with a grin."Y'u're right pleasant and friendly, but the boys have got a savvy waydown deep that y'u'd shuck that friendliness awful sudden if any of themdropped around with 'Object, Matrimony' in their manner. Consequenceis, they're loaded down to the ground with admiration of their boss,but they ain't presumptuous enough to expaict any more. I had notions,mebbe, I'd cut more ice, me being not afflicted with bashfulness. Mynotions faded, ma'am, in about a week."
"Then Nora came?" she laughed.
"No, ma'am, they had gone glimmering long before she arrived. I was justconvalescent enough to need being cheered up when she drapped in."
"And are you cheered up yet?" his mistress asked.
He took off his dusty hat and scratched his head. "I ain't rightcertain, yet, ma'am. Soon as I know I'm consoled, I'll be round with aninvite to the wedding."
"That is, if you are."
"If I am--yes. Y'u can't most always tell when they have eyes likehers."
"You're quite an authority on the sex considering your years."
"Yes, ma'am." He looked aggrieved, thinking himself a man grown. "Howdid y'u say Mr. Bannister was?"
"Wait, and I'll send Nora out to tell you," she flashed, and disappearedin the house.
Conversation at the bunkhouse and the chucktent sometimes circledaround the young women at the house, but its personality rarely grewpronounced. References to Helen Messiter and the housemaid were usuallyby way of repartee at each other. For a change had come over the spiritof the Lazy D men, and, though a cheerful profanity still flowed freelywhen they were alone together, vulgarity was largely banished.
The morning after his conversation with Miss Messiter, McWilliamswas washing in the foreman's room when the triangle beat the call forbreakfast, and he heard the cook's raucous "Come and get it." There wasthe usual stampede for the tent, and a minute later Mac flung back theflap and entered. He took the seat at the head of the table, along thebenches on both sides of which the punchers were plying busy knives andforks.
"A stack of chips," ordered the foreman; and the cook's "Coming up" wasscarcely more prompt than the plate of hot cakes he set before the youngman.
"Hen fruit, sunny side up," shouted Reddy, who was further advanced inhis meal.
"Tame that fog-horn, son," advised Wun Hop; but presently he slid threefried eggs from a frying-pan into the plate of the hungry one.
"I want y'u boys to finish flankin' that bunch of hill calves to-day,"said the foreman, emptying half a jug of syrup over his cakes.
"Redtop, he ain't got no appetite these days," grinned Denver, as thegentleman mentioned cleaned up a second loaded plate of ham, eggs andfried potatoes. "I see him studying a Wind River Bible* yesterday.Curious how in the spring a young man's fancy gits to wandering on housefurnishing. Red, he was taking the catalogue alphabetically. Carpets wasabsorbin' his attention, chairs on deck, and chandeliers in the hole, aswe used to say when we was baseball kids."
[* A Wind River Bible in the Northwest ranch country is a catalogue of one of the big Chicago department stores that does a large shipping business in the West.]
"Ain't a word of truth in it," indignantly denied the assailed, hisunfinished nose and chin giving him a pathetic, whipped puppy look."Sho! I was just looking up saddles. Can't a fellow buy a new saddlewithout asking leave of Denver?"
"Cyarpets used to begin with a C in my spelling-book, but saddles gotoff right foot fust with a S," suggested Mac amiably.
"He was ce'tainly trying to tree his saddle among the C's. He waslooking awful loving at a Turkish rug. Reckon he thought it was asaddle-blanket," derided Denver cheerfully.
"Huh! Y'u're awful smart, Denver," retaliated Reddy, his complexionmatching his hair. "Y'u talk a heap with your mouth. Nobody believes aword of what y'u say."
Denver relaxed into a range song by way of repartee:
"I want mighty bad to be married, To have a garden and a home; Ice'tainly aim to git married, And have a gyurl for my own."
"Aw! Y'u fresh guys make me tired. Y'u don't devil me a bit, not a bit.Whyfor should I care what y'u say? I guess this outfit ain't got nosurcingle on me." Nevertheless, he made a hurried end of his breakfastand flung out of the tent.
"Y'u boys hadn't ought to wound Reddy's tender feelings, and him so benton matrimony!" said Denver innocently. "Get a move on them fried spudsand sashay them down this way, if there's any left when y'u fill yourplate, Missou."
Nor was Reddy the only young man who had dreams those days at the LazyD. Cupid must have had his hands full, for his darts punctured more thanone honest plainsman's heart. The reputation of the young women at theLazy D seemed to travel on the wings of the wind, and from far and nearCattleland sent devotees to this shrine of youth and beauty. So casuallythe victims drifted in, always with a good business excuse warranted toendure raillery and sarcasm, that it was impossible to say they had comeof set purpose to sun themselves in feminine smiles.
As for Nora, it is not too much to say that she was having the time ofher life. Detroit, Michigan, could offer no such field for her expansivecharms as the Bighorn country, Wyoming. Here she might have her pickof a hundred, and every one of them picturesquely begirt with flannelshirt, knotted scarf at neck, an arsenal that bristled, and a sun-tanthat could be achieved only in the outdoors of the Rockies. Certainlythese knights of the saddle radiated a romance with which even herfloorwalker "gentleman friend" could not compete.
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