“How about a ride over to the South Fork this afternoon, Zen?” said Y.D. to his daughter the following morning. “I just want to make sure them boys is hittin’ the high spots. The grass is gettin’ powerful dry an’ you can never tell what may happen.”
“You’re on,” the girl replied across the breakfast table. Her mother looked up sharply. She wondered if the prospect of another meeting with Transley had anything to do with Zen’s alacrity.
“I had hoped you would outgrow your slang, Zen,” she remonstrated gently. “Men like Mr. Transley are likely to judge your training by your speech.”
“I should worry. Slang is to language what feathers are to a hat—they give it distinction, class. They lift it out of the drab commonplace.”
“Still, I would not care to be dressed entirely in feathers,” her mother thrust quietly.
“Good for you, Mother!” the girl exclaimed, throwing an arm about her neck and planking a firm kiss on her forehead. “That was a solar plexus. Now I’ll try to be good and wear a feather only here and there. But Mr. Transley has nothing to do with it.”
“Of course not,” said Y.D. “Still, Transley is a man with snap in him. That’s why he’s boss. So many of these ornery good-for-nothin’s is always wishin’ they was boss, but they ain’t willin’ to pay the price. It costs somethin’ to get to the head of the herd—an’ stay there.”
“He seems firm on all fours,” the girl agreed. “How do we travel, and when?”
“Better take a democrat, I guess,” her father said. “We can throw in a tent and some bedding for you, as we’ll maybe stay over a couple of nights.”
“The blue sky is tent enough for me,” Zen protested, “and I can surely rustle a blanket or two around the camp. Besides, I’ll want a riding horse to get around with there.”
“You can run him beside the democrat,” said her father. “You’re gettin’ too big to go campin’ promisc’us like when you was a kid.”
“That’s the penalty for growing up,” Zen sighed. “All right, Dad. Say two o’clock?”
The girl spent the morning helping her mother about the house, and casting over in her mind the probable developments of the near future. She would not have confessed outwardly to even a casual interest in Transley, but inwardly she admitted that the promise of another meeting with him gave zest to the prospect. Transley was interesting. At least he was out of the commonplace. His bold directness had rather fascinated her. He had a will. Her father had always admired men with a will, and Zen shared his admiration. Then there was Linder. The fierce light of Transley’s charms did not blind her to the glow of quiet capability which she saw in Linder. If one were looking for a husband, Linder had much to recommend him. He was probably less capable than Transley, but he would be easier to manage.... But who was looking for a husband? Not Zen. No, no, certainly not Zen.
Then there was George Drazk, whose devotions fluctuated between “that Pete-horse” and the latest female to cross his orbit. At the thought of George Drazk Zen laughed outright. She had played with him. She had made a monkey of him, and he deserved all he had got. It was not the first occasion upon which Zen had let herself drift with the tide, always sure of justifying herself and discomfiting someone by the swift, strong strokes with which, at the right moment, she reached the shore. Zen liked to think of herself as careering through life in the same way as she rode the half-broken horses of her father’s range. How many such a horse had thought that the lithe body on his back was something to race with, toy with, and, when tired of that, fling precipitately to earth! And not one of those horses but had found that while he might race and toy with his rider within limitations, at the last that light body was master, and not he.... Yet Zen loved best the horse that raced wildest and was hardest to bring into subjection.
That was her philosophy of life so far as a girl of twenty may have a philosophy of life. It was to go on and see what would happen, supported always by a quiet confidence that in any pinch she could take care of herself. She had learned to ride and shoot, to sleep out and cook in the open, to ride the ranges after dark by instinct and the stars—she had learned these things while other girls of her age learned the rudiments of fancy-work and the scales of the piano.
Her father and mother knew her disposition, loved it, and feared for it. They knew that there was never a rider so brave, so skilful, so strong, but some outlaw would throw him at last. So at fourteen they sent her east to a boarding-school. In two months she was back with a letter of expulsion, and the boast of having blacked the eyes of the principal’s daughter.
“They couldn’t teach me any more, Mother,” she said. “They admitted it. So here I am.”
Y.D. was plainly perplexed. “It’s about time you was halter-broke,” he commented, “but who’s goin’ to do it?”
“If a girl has learned to read and think, what more can the schools do for her?” she demanded.
And Y.D., never having been to school, could not answer.
The sun was capping the Rockies with molten gold when the rancher and his daughter swung down the foothill slopes to the camp on the South Y.D. Strings of men and horses returning from the upland meadows could be seen from the hillside as they descended.
Y.D.‘s sharp eyes measured the scale of operations.
“They’re hittin’ the high spots,” he said, approvingly. “That boy Transley is a hum-dinger.”
Zen made no reply.
“I say he’s a hum-dinger,” her father repeated.
The girl looked up with a quick flush of surprise. Y.D. was no puzzle to her, and if he went out of his way to commend Transley he had a purpose.
“Mr. Transley seems to have made a hit with you, Dad,” she remarked, evasively.
“Well, I do like to see a man who’s got the goods in him. I like a man that can get there, just as I like a horse that can get there. I’ve often wondered, Zen, what kind you’d take up with, when it came to that, an’ hoped he’d be a live crittur. After I’m dead an’ buried I don’t want no other dead one spendin’ my simoleons.”
“How about Mr. Linder?” said Zen, naively.
Her father looked up sharply. “Zen,” he said, “you’re not serious?”
Zen laughed. “I don’t figure you’re exactly serious, Dad, in your talk about Transley. You’re just feeling out. Well—let me do a little feeling out. How about Linder?”
“Linder’s all right,” Y.D. replied. “Better than the average, I admit. But he’s not the man Transley is. If he was, he wouldn’t be workin’ for Transley. You can’t keep a man down, Zen, if he’s got the goods in him. Linder comes up over the average, so’s you can notice it, but not like Transley does.”
Zen did not pursue the subject. She understood her father’s philosophy very well indeed, and, to a large degree, she accepted it as her own. It was natural that a man of Y.D.‘s experience, who had begun life with no favors and had asked none since, and had made of himself a big success—it was natural that such a man should judge all others by their material achievements. The only quality Y.D. took off his hat to was the ability to do things. And Y.D.‘s idea of things was very concrete; it had to do with steers and land, with hay and money and men. It was by such things he measured success. And Zen was disposed to agree with him. Why not? It was the only success she knew.
Transley was greeting them as they drew into camp.
“Glad to see you, Y.D.; honored to have a visit from you, Ma’am,” he said, as he helped them from the democrat, and gave instructions for the care of their horses. “Supper is waiting, and the men won’t be ready for some time.”
Y.D. shook hands with Transley cordially. “Zen an’ me just thought we’d run over and see how the wind blew,” he said. “You got a good spot here for a camp, Transley. But we won’t go in to supper just now. Let the men eat first; I always say the work horses should be first at the barn. Well, how’s she goin’?”
“Fine,” said Transley, “fine,” but it was evident his mind was divided. He was glancing at Zen, who stood by during the conversation.
“I must try and make your daughter at home,” he continued. “I allow myself the luxury of a private tent, and as you will be staying over night I will ask you to accept it for her.”
“But I have my own tent with me, in the democrat,” said Zen. “If you will let the men pitch it under the trees where I can hear the water murmuring in the night—”
“Who’d have thought it, from the daughter of the practical Y.D!” Transley bantered. “All right, Ma’am, but in the meantime take my tent. I’ll get water, and there’s a basin.” He already was leading the way. “Make yourself at home—Zen. May I call you Zen?” he added, in a lower voice, as they left Y.D. at a distance.
“Everybody calls me Zen.”
They were standing at the door of the tent, he holding back the flap that she might enter. The valley was already in shadow, and there was no sunlight to play on her hair, but her face and figure in the mellow dusk seemed entirely winsome and adorable. There was no taint of Y.D.‘s millions in the admiration that Transley bent upon her.... Of course, as an adjunct, the millions were not to be despised.
When the men had finished supper Transley summoned her. On the way to the chuck-wagon she passed close to George Drazk. It was evident that he had chosen a station with that result in view. She had passed by when she turned, whimsically.
“Well, George, how’s that Pete-horse?” she said.
“Up an comin’ all the time, Zen,” he answered.
She bit her lip over his familiarity, but she had no come-back. She had given him the opening, by calling him “George.”
“You see, I got quite well acquainted with Mr. Drazk when he came back to hunt for a horse blanket which had mysteriously disappeared,” she explained to Transley.
They ascended the steps which led from the ground into the wagon. The table had been reset for four, and as the shadows were now heavy in the valley, candles had been lighted. Y.D. and his daughter sat on one side, Transley on the other. In a moment Linder entered. He had already had a talk with Y.D., but had not met Zen since their supper together in the rancher’s house.
“Glad to see you again, Mr. Linder,” said the girl, rising and extending her hand across the table. “You see we lost no time in returning your call.”
Linder took her hand in a frank grasp, but could think of nothing in particular to say. “We’re glad to have you,” was all he could manage.
Zen was rather sorry that Linder had not made more of the situation. She wondered what quick repartee, shot, no doubt, with double meaning, Transley would have returned. It was evident that, as her father had said, Linder was second best. And yet there was something about his shyness that appealed to her even more than did Transley’s superb self-confidence.
The meal was spent in small talk about horses and steers and the merits of the different makes of mowing machines. When it was finished Transley apologized for not offering his guests any liquor. “I never keep it about the camp,” he said.
“Quite right,” Y.D. agreed, “quite right. Booze is like fire; a valuable thing in careful hands, but mighty dangerous when everybody gets playin’ with it. I reckon the grass is gettin’ pretty dry, Transley?”
“Mighty dry, all right, but we’re taking every precaution.”
“I’m sure you are, but you can’t take precautions for other people. Has anybody been puttin’ you up to any trouble here?”
“Well, no, I can’t exactly say trouble,” said Transley, “but we’ve got notice it’s coming. A chap named Grant, foreman, I think, for Landson, down the valley, rode over last night, and invited us not to cut any hay hereabouts. He was very courteous, and all that, but he had the manner of a man who’d go quite a distance in a pinch.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Told him I was working for Y.D., and then asked him to stay for supper.”
“Did he stay?” Zen asked.
“He did not. He cantered off back, courteous as he came. And this morning we went out on the job, and have cut all day, and nothing has happened.”
“I guess he found you were not to be bluffed,” said Zen, and Transley could not prevent a flush of pleasure at her compliment. “Of course Landson has no real claim to the hay, has he, Dad?”
“Of course not. I reckon them’ll be his stacks we saw down the valley. Well, I’m not wantin’ to rob him of the fruit of his labor, an’ if he keeps calm perhaps we’ll let him have what he has cut, but if he don’t—” Y.D.‘s face hardened with the set of a man accustomed to fight, and win, his own battles. “I think we’ll just stick around a day or two in case he tries to start anythin’,” he continued.
“Well, five o’clock comes early,” said Transley, “and you folks must be tired with your long drive. We’ve had your tent pitched down by the water, Zen, so that its murmurs may sing you to sleep. You see, I have some of the poetic in me, too. Mr. Linder will show you down, and I will see that your father is made comfortable. And remember—five o’clock does not apply to visitors.”
The camp now lay in complete darkness, save where a lantern threw its light from a tent by the river. Zen walked by Linder’s side. Presently she reached out and took his arm.
“I beg your pardon,” said Linder. “I should have offered—”
“Of course you should. Mr. Transley would not have waited to be told. Dad thinks that anything that’s worth having in this world is worth going after, and going after hard. I guess I’m Dad’s daughter in more ways than one.”
“I suppose he’s right,” Linder confessed, “but I’ve always been shy. I get along all right with men.”
“The truth is, Mr Linder, you’re not shy—you’re frightened. Now I can well believe that no man could frighten you. Consequently you get along all right with men. Do I need to tell you the rest?”
“I never thought of myself as being afraid of women,” he replied. “It has always seemed that they were, well, just out of my line.”
They had reached the tent but the girl made no sign of going in. In the silence the sibilant lisp of the stream rose loud about them.
“Mr. Linder,” she said at length, “do you know why Mr. Transley sent you down here with me?”
“I’m sure I don’t, except to show you to your tent.”
“That was the least of his purposes. He wanted to show you that he wasn’t afraid of you; and he wanted to show me that he wasn’t afraid of you. Mr. Transley is a very self-confident individual. There is such a thing as being too self-confident, Mr. Linder, just as there is such a thing as being too shy. Do you get me? Good night!” And with a little rush she was in her tent.
Linder walked slowly down to the water’s edge, and stood there, thinking, until her light went out. His brain was in a whirl with a sensation entirely strange to it. A light wind, laden with snow-smell from the mountains, pressed gently against his features, and presently Linder took deeper breaths than he had ever known before.
“By Jove!” he said. “Who’d have thought it possible?”
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