him at it.
“You thought he waited here, or planned to–to meet me,” she flared. “He was too square to tell you the truth, but it was I rode out here to say good-bye, rode out and held him up! But I did not reckon anyone would try to insult him for it!”
Her stepfather regarded her grimly. She was angry, and very near to tears.
“Time you had your breakfast,” he observed, “and all signs indicate I should have sent you East last year, and kept you out of the promiscuous mixups along the border. It’s the dumping ground for all sorts of stray adventurers, and no place for a girl to ride alone.”
“He seemed to think I am as able to look after myself as you,” she retorted. “You aren’t fair to him because you take the word of Conrad, but Conrad lies, and I’m glad he got thrashed good and plenty! Now I’ve got that off my mind, I’ll go eat a cheerful breakfast.”
Singleton walked silent beside her back to where his horse was grazing by the roadside.
“Huh!” grunted the girl with frank scorn. “So you got out of the saddle to spy? Haven’t you some black-and-tan around the ranch to do your dirty work?”
“It’s just as well to be civil till you know what you are talking about,” he reminded her with a sort of trained patience. “I came out without my breakfast just to keep the ranchmen from thinking what Tia Luz thinks. She told me I’d find that fellow waiting for you. I didn’t believe it, but I see she is not so far wrong.”
He spoke without heat or feeling, and his tone was that of quiet discussion with a man or boy, not at all that of a guardian to a girl. His charge was evidently akin to the horse ranch of Granados as described by the old ranger: Singleton had acquired them, but never understood them.
“Look here,” said his protégée with boyish roughness, “that Dutchman sees everything crooked, especially if there’s an American in range, and he prejudices you. Why don’t you wake up long enough to notice that he’s framing some excuse to run off every decent chap who comes on the place? I knew Rhodes was too white to be let stay. I saw that as soon as he landed, and I told him so! What I can’t understand is that you won’t see it.”
“A manager has to have a free hand, Billie, or else be let go,” explained Singleton. “Conrad knows horses, he knows the market, and is at home with the Mexicans. Also he costs less than we used to pay, and that is an item in a bad year.”
“I’ll bet we lose enough cattle to his friends to make up the difference,” she persisted. “Rhodes was right when he called them a rotten bunch.”
“Let us hope that when you return from school you will have lost the major portion of your unsavory vocabulary,” he suggested. “That will be worth a herd of cattle.”
“It would be worth another herd to see you wake up and show you had one good fight in you!” she retorted. “Conrad has all of the ranch outfit locoed but me; that’s why he passes on this school notion to you. He wants me out of sight.”
“I should have been more decided, and insisted that you go last year. Heaven knows you need it badly enough,” sighed Singleton, ignoring her disparaging comment on his own shortcomings. And then as they rode under the swaying fronds of the palm drive leading to the ranch house he added, “Those words of your bronco busting friend concerning the life insurance risk sounded like a threat. I wonder what he meant by it?”
The telephone bell on the Granados Junction line was ringing when they entered the patio. Singleton glanced at the clock.
“A night letter probably,” he remarked. “Go get your coffee, child, it’s a late hour for breakfast.”
Billie obeyed, sulkily seating herself opposite Tia Luz–who was bolt upright behind the coffee urn, with a mien expressing dignified disapproval. She inhaled a deep breath for forceful speech, but Billie was ahead of her.
“So it was you! You were the spy, and sent him after me!”
“Madre de Dios! and why not?” demanded the competent Luz. “You stealing your own horse at the dawn to go with the old Captain Pike. I ask of you what kind of a girl is that? Also Mercedes was here last night tearing her hair because of the girls, her sister’s daughters, stolen away over there in Sonora. Well! is that not enough? That Señor Kit is also too handsome. I was a fool to send the medicine with you to Pedro’s house. He looked a fine caballero but even a fine caballero will take a girl when she follows after. I know! And once in Sonora all trails of a girl are lost. I know that too!”
“You are all crazy, and I never saw him at Pedro’s house, never!” said the girl reaching for her coffee, and then suddenly she began to laugh. “Did you think, did you make Papa Philip think, that I was eloping like this?” and she glanced down at her denim riding dress.
“And why not? Did I myself not steal out in a shift and petticoat the first time I tried to run away with my Andreas? And beyond that not a thing under God had I on but my coral beads, and the red satin slippers of my sister Dorotea! She pulled my hair wickedly for those slippers, and I got a reata on my back from my grandmother for that running away. I was thirteen years old then! But when I was nearly sixteen we did get away, Andreas and I, and after that it was as well for the grandmother to pay a priest for us, and let us alone. Ai-ji! señorita, I am not forgetting what I know! And while I am here in Granados there must be nothing less than a grand marriage, and may the saints send the right man, for a wrong one makes hell in any house!”
Billie forgot her sulkiness in her joy at the elopements of Tia Luz. No wonder she distrusted an American girl who was allowed to ride alone!
But in the midst of her laughter she was reminded that Singleton was still detained at the telephone in the adjoining room, and that his rather high-pitched tones betrayed irritation.
“Well, why can’t you give the telegram to me? Addressed to Conrad? Of course if it’s a personal message I don’t want it, but you say it is a ranch matter–and important. Horses? What about them?”
Billie, listening, sped from the table to his side, and putting her hand over the telephone, whispered:
“If Brehman, the secretary, was here, they’d give it to him. They always do.”
Singleton nodded to her, and grew decided.
“See here, Webster, one of our men was hurt, and Brehman took his place and went East with that horse shipment. Mr. Conrad had to go down in Sonora on business, and I am the only one here to take his place. Just give me the message as you would give it to the secretary. But you’d better type a copy and send by mail that I can put it on file. All right? Yes, go ahead.”
Billie had quickly secured paper and pencil, but instead of taking them, Singleton motioned for her to write the message.
Adolf Conrad, Granados Ranch, Granados Junction, Arizona. Regret to report September shipment horses developed ailment aboard vessel, fifty per cent dead, balance probably of no military use,
Word by word Singleton took the message and word by word Billie wrote it down, while they stared at each other.
“Developed ailment aboard vessel!” repeated Singleton. “Then there was something wrong on shipboard, for there certainly is not here. We have no sick horses on the ranch, never do have!”
“But these people?” and Billie pointed to the signature.
“Oh,
