givin’ Baldy a workout,” he explained. “He ain’t been out for three or four days, an’ you told me to work ‘em out if I had time.”
Custer Pennington nodded.
“See any stock back there?”
“No. How’s the Apache today — forgin’ as bad as usual?”
Pennington shook his head negatively.
“That fellow shod him yesterday just the way I want him shod. I wish you’d take a good look at his shoes, Slick, so you can see that he’s always shod this same way.”
His eyes had been traveling over Slick’s mount whose heaving sides were covered with lather. “Baldy’s pretty soft, Slick; I wouldn’t work him too hard all at once. Get him up to it gradually.”
He turned and rode off with the girl at his side. Slick Allen looked after them for a moment and then moved his horse off at a slow walk toward the ranch. He was a lean, sinewy man of medium height. He might have been a cavalryman once. He sat his horse, even at a walk, like one who has sweated and bled under a drill sergeant in the days of his youth.
“How do you like him?” the girl asked of Pennington.
“He’s a good horseman, and good horsemen are getting rare these days,” replied Pennington; “but I don’t know that I’d choose him for a playmate. Don’t you like him?”
“I’m afraid I don’t. His eyes give me the creeps — they’re like a fish’s.”
“To tell the truth, Grace, I don’t like him,” said Custer. “He’s one of those rare birds — a good horseman who doesn’t love horses. I imagine he won’t last long on the Rancho del Ganado; but we’ve got to give him a fair shake — he’s only been with us a few weeks.”
They were picking their way toward the summit of a steep hogback. The man, who led, was seeking carefully for the safest footing, shamed out of his recent recklessness by the thought of how close the girl had come to a serious accident through his thoughtlessness. They rode along the hogback until they could look down into a tiny basin where a small bunch of cattle was grazing, and then, turning and dipping over the edge, they dropped slowly toward the animals.
Near the bottom of the slope, they came upon a white-faced bull standing beneath the spreading shade of a live oak. He turned his woolly face toward them, his red-rimmed eyes observing them dispassionately for a moment. Then, he turned away again and resumed his cud, disdaining further notice of them.
“That’s the King of Ganado, isn’t it?” asked the girl.
“Looks like him, doesn’t he? But he isn’t. He’s the King’s likeliest son, and unless I’m mistaken, he’s going to give the old fellow a mighty tough time of it this fall if the old boy wants to hang on to the grand championship. We’ve never shown him yet. It’s an idea of Father’s. He’s always wanted to spring a new champion at a great show and surprise the world. He’s kept this fellow hidden away ever since he gave the first indication that he was going to be a fine bull. At least a hundred breeders have visited the herd in the past year, and not one of them has seen him. Father says he’s the greatest bull that ever lived and that his first show is going to be the International.”
“I just know he’ll win,” exclaimed the girl. “Why look at him! Isn’t he a beauty?”
“Got a back like a billiard table,” commented Custer proudly.
They rode down among the heifers. There were a dozen beauties — three-year-olds. Hidden to one side, behind a small bush, the man’s quick eyes discerned a little bundle of red and white.
“There it is, Grace,” he called, and the two rode toward it.
One of the heifers looked fearfully toward them, then at the bush and finally walked toward it, lowing plaintively.
“We’re not going to hurt it, little girl,” the man assured her.
As they came closer, there arose a thing of long, wobbly legs, big joints, and great, dark eyes, its spotless coat of red and white shining with health and life.
“The cunning thing!” cried the girl. “How I’d like to squeeze it! I just love ‘em, Custer!”
She had slipped from her saddle and, dropping her reins on the ground, was approaching the calf.
“Look out for the cow!” cried the man as he dismounted and moved forward to the girl’s side with his arm through the Apache’s reins. “She hasn’t been up much, and she may be a little wild.”
The calf stood its ground for a moment and then, with tail erect, cavorted madly for its mother behind whom it took refuge.
“I just love ‘em! I just love ‘em!” repeated the girl.
“You say the same thing about the colts and the little pigs,” the man reminded her.
“I love ‘em all!” she cried, shaking her head, her eyes twinkling.
“You love them because they’re little and helpless, just like babies,” he said. “Oh, Grace, how you’d love a baby!”
The girl flushed prettily. Quite suddenly, he seized her in his arms and crushed her to him, smothering her with a long kiss. Breathless, she wriggled partially away, but he still held her in his arms.
“Why won’t you, Grace?” he begged. “There’ll never be anybody else for me or for you. Father and Mother and Eva love you almost as much as I do, and, on your side, your mother and Guy have always seemed to take it as a matter of course that we’d marry. It isn’t the drinking, is it, dear?”
“No, it’s not that, Custer. Of course, I’ll marry you — someday; but not yet. Why, I haven’t lived yet, Custer! I want to live. I want to do something outside of the humdrum life that I have always led and the humdrum life that I shall live as a wife and mother. I want to live a little, Custer, and then I’ll be ready to settle down. You all tell me that I am beautiful, and down, away down in the depth of my soul, I feel that I have talent. If I have, I ought to use the gifts God has given me.”
She was speaking very seriously, and the man listened patiently and with respect, for he realized that she was revealing for the first time a secret yearning that she must have long held locked in her bosom.
“Just what do you want to do, dear?” he asked gently.
“I — oh, it seems silly when I try to put it in words, but, in dreams, it is very beautiful and very real.”
“The stage?” he asked.
“It is just like you to understand!” Her smile rewarded him. “Will you help me? I know Mother will object.”
“You want me to help you take all the happiness out of my life?” he asked.
“It would only be for a little while — just a few years, and then I would come back to you — after I had made good.”
“You would never come back, Grace, unless you failed,” he said. “If you succeeded, you would never be contented in any other life or atmosphere. If you came back a failure, you
