"Well, say that I know?"
"Aren"t you going to tell?"
He shook his head. "Not just yet. I"ve got private reasons for keeping it quiet a while."
"I"m sure they are creditable to you," came her swift ironic retort.
"Sure," he agreed, whimsically. "I must live up to the professional standard. Honor among thieves, y"u know."
CHAPTER 9. MISS DARLING ARRIVES
Miss Messiter clung to civilization enough, at least, to prefer that her chambermaid should be a woman rather than a Chinese. It did not suit her preconceived idea of the proper thing that Lee Ming should sweep floors, dust bric-a-brac, and make the beds. To see him slosh-sloshing around in his felt slippers made her homesick for Kalamazoo. There were other reasons why the proprieties would be better served by having another woman about the place; reasons that had to do with the chaperone system that even in the uncombed West make its claims upon unmarried young women of respectability. She had with her for the present fourteen-year-old Ida Henderson, but this arrangement was merely temporary.
Wherefore on the morning after her arrival Helen had sent two letters back to "the States." One of these had been to Mrs. Winslow, a widow of fifty-five, inviting her to come out on a business basis as housekeeper of the Lazy D. The buxom widow had loved Helen since she had been a toddling baby, and her reply was immediate and enthusiastic. Eight days later she had reported in person. The second letter bore the affectionate address of Nora Darling, Detroit, Michigan. This also in time 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 the Lazy D that Helen Messiter came out to the porch of the house with a letter in her hand. She found her foreman sitting on the steps waiting for her, but he got up as soon as he heard the fall of her light footsteps behind him.
"You sent for me, ma"am?" he asked, hat in hand.
"Yes; I want you to drive into Gimlet b.u.t.te and bring back a person whom you"ll find at the Elk House waiting for you. I had rather you would go yourself, 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. Inquire for Miss Darling. She isn"t used to jolting two days in a rig, but I know 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. Be certain you take rug enough."
"I"ll take care of her the best I know how. Expect she"s likely rheumatic, but I"ll wrop her up till she looks like a Cheyenne squaw when 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 she will stay. I don" know about the rheumatism, but you might ask her."
There were pinpoints of merriment behind the guileless innocence of her eyes, but they came to the surface only after the foreman had departed.
McWilliams ordered a team of young horse hitched, and presently set out on his two day; journey to Gimlet b.u.t.te. He reached that town in good season, 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 bandanna that loosely embraced the brown throat above the flannel shirt to the encrusted boots but through it the good humor of his tanned face smiled fraternally on a young woman he pa.s.ses at the entrance to the hotel. Her gay smile met his cordially, and she was still in his mind while he ran his eye down the register in search of the name he wanted. There it was--Miss Nora Darling, Detroit, Michigan--in the neatest of little round letters, under date of the previous day"s arrivals.
"Is Miss Darling in?" asked McWilliams of the half-grown son of the landlady who served in lieu of clerk and porter.
"Nope! Went out a little while ago. Said to tell anybody to wait that asked for her."
Mac nodded, relieved to find that duty had postponed itself long enough for him to pursue the friendly smile that had not been wasted on him a few seconds before. He strolled out to the porch and decided at once that he needed a cigar more than anything else on earth. He was helped to a realization of his need by seeing the owner of the smile disappear in an adjoining drug store.
She was beginning on a nut sundae when the puncher drifted in. She continued to devote even her eyes to its consumption, while the foreman opened a casual conversation with the drug clerk and lit his cigar.
"How are things coming in Gimlet b.u.t.te?" he asked, by way of prolonging his stay rather than out of desire for information.
Yes, she certainly had the longest, softest lashes he had ever seen, and the ripest of cherry lips, behind the smiling depths of which sparkled two rows of tiny pearls. He wished she would look at HIM and smile again. 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," he heard his sub-conscious self make answer to the patronizing inquiries of him of the "boiled" shirt.
"Funny how pretty hair of that color was especially when there was so much of it. You might call it a sort of coppery gold where the little curls escaped in tendrils and ran wild. A fellow--"
"Yes, I reckon most of the boys will drop around to the Fourth of July celebration. 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 innocent gaze smote him again with the brightest of Irish eyes conceivable. It lingered for just a ponderable sunlit moment or him. She had smiled once more.
After a decent interval Mac pursued his pet.i.t charmer to the hotel.
She was seated on the porch reading a magazine, and was absorbedly unconscious of him when he pa.s.sed. For a few awkward moments he hung around the office, then returned to the porch and took the chair most distant from her. He had sat there a long ten minutes before she let her hands and the magazine fall into her lap and demurely gave him his chance.
"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. Desperately McWilliams tried to think of something to say to keep it alive without being 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 to this country."
"Thank you, but I"m expecting a conveyance to meet me here. You didn"t happen to pa.s.s 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 Miss Darling?"
"What makes you so sure I"m not?" she asked, tilting her dimpled chin toward 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 mean that. Miss Messiter said she was an old lady--"
"You needn"t tell fibs about it. She couldn"t have said anything of the kind. Who are you, anyhow?" the girl demanded, with spirit.
"I"m the foreman of the Lazy D, come to get Miss Darling. My name is McWilliams--Jim McWilliams."