scared. Maybe it’s comin’ out in Nesta. Mother now—she took Nesta’s part. You’d think she was proud of the girl’s conquests. Mother must get somethin’ out of it herself. I shore couldn’t talk more aboot it.”
“Ahuh. I see your side, Rich. You not only feel bad about Sam, but you’re worried for Nesta. An’ if Lee Tate bragged, you know——”
“Cap, he has already bragged,” interrupted Rich, darkly. “That’s Lee’s way. Girls are easy for him. So far his talk hasn’t been—well, any shame to Nesta. But it’s most damned irritatin’.”
“Wal, Rich, his talk an’ Nesta’s odd behavior have got to be stopped.”
“Right, old timer,” returned Ames, quickly. “I reckon if we can fetch Nesta to her senses we won’t have to go further.”
“Don’t say ‘if,’ Rich. We’ll do it. An’ is thet all you’ve been worryin’ over?”
“Shore. Everythin’ else concernin’ us couldn’t be better. We’ve got over two hundred haid of cattle now. In another year Sam an’ I will need help. This heah is a fine range. In dry seasons the cattle browse up high while those down in the basin starve. No rustlin’ to speak of on this side. I can see how in a few years we shore will be rich. We live off the farm. An’ Sam is doin’ mighty fine. If Nesta will only settle down now we’ll all be happy, with the brightest prospects. Next year we’ll send the twins to school.”
“Wal, wal!—Thet’s good news. But it’d be sad if thet big-eyed lass spoiled it all. . . . I don’t believe she will, even allowin’ for the freaks of life. I know Nesta an’ I trust her. I’ll bet when her side of the story comes out we’ll see the thing different.”
“Cap, you cheer me up,” replied Ames, rising with brighter face. “I’ll chase myself now. An’ if Nesta doesn’t come heah, you find her. An’ if you cain’t talk her out of goin’ to Lil Snell’s weddin’ we’ll all go.”
“It’ll be better to do our talkin’ afterward,” said Tanner, sagely.
Tanner busied himself in and around his cabin, an expectant eye on the trail for Nesta. Some of the Ameses’ hounds came over to make friends with the trapper again. But Nesta did not put in an appearance. Tanner’s optimism began to fail and he grew troubled. Whereupon he sallied forth to find the girl.
The noonday sun poured warmly down into the valley. The heights looked clear and cold. There was a tang in the air, and the oak slopes gleamed steely gray. Deer and turkey watched the trapper as he plodded down the trail. He halted in the shady gulch to rest and ponder, then went on, to repeat the performance out in the flat, and he sat a long time on the old log. When he finally arrived at the Ames cabin the afternoon was well advanced.
Cappy found Mescal and Manzanita very much the worse for a prodigious consumption of candy. “Little pigs!” averred Mrs. Ames. “I had to take the candy away from them.” Mescal was sick in bed with colic, and Manzanita gave a capital imitation of a torpid lizard motionless in the sun.
“Cappy, you shore gave us a wonderful evenin’,” said Mrs. Ames. “But I’m afraid you’ve spoilt us.”
“Aw, what’s a little spoilin’?” laughed the trapper. “Once or twice a year won’t hurt nobody. Where’s Nesta?”
“She was flittin’ around like a butterfly all mawnin’,” rejoined Mrs. Ames. “Singin’ like a lark one minute, then mopin’ the next. She’s outdoors now. You’ll find her somewhere dreamin’ under a tree.”
“Mrs. Ames, what ails the lass?”
“Ails Nesta!—Nothin’ in the world. You men just cain’t understand us women.”
“Wal, perhaps not. But I’m tryin’ hard. An’ I reckon Rich an’ this Sam Playford are wuss off than me.”
“Rich been talkin’ to you?” queried the mother, sharply.
“Yes, a little. The lad is worried about Nesta. An’ I reckon he has cause.”
“I’m not gainsayin’ that, Cappy. He an’ Sam worship Nesta. An’ they haven’t sense enough to let the poor girl alone. Nesta is goin’ through a bad time. Her first love affairs. She was late startin’. Before I was sixteen I had half a dozen.”
“Aw, I see,” said Cappy, but he did not see at all. “So it’s love affairs.”
“Shore. She’s in love with two young men I know of. There might be another. This heah Sam Playford is a mighty fine boy. He’s good an’ gentle, an’ he’s powerful ugly. Now this Lee Tate is a handsome devil. He’s no good, an’ I’ll vouch he has a rough hand with girls. I’ve been tryin’ to make Rich an’ Sam see that they must let her alone. Sam is beginnin’ to. But Rich is like all the Ameses.”
“But, Mrs. Ames,” expostulated Cappy, “if they or all of us let Nesta alone, she—she’ll get a bit between her teeth an’—an’ I don’t know what.”
“Cappy, she has done that already. An’ if we nag her she’ll ride off wild. I know girls. I was one once. An’ Nesta is an Ames clear through. My advice to you is to let her alone, agree with her, pet her. An’ if you have to talk, why, praise Lee Tate to her.”
“Good Lord, woman!” ejaculated Tanner, in bewildered disapproval.
“Cappy, take my word for it. If there’s any harm done it’s done. You cain’t help it. Nesta is genuinely fond of Sam Playford. But she’s also fascinated by this young Tate. That’s natural. Sam will get her, though, if he doesn’t make a jackass out of himself. He’s not worryin’ me much. Sam is a reasonable fellow. He rings true. But Rich will give me gray hairs. He’s his father over again. An’ more—Cappy. He’s the livin’ likeness of his father’s twin brother, Jess Ames. An’ if ever there was a fightin’ Texan it was Jess Ames. Their father was Caleb Ames, who fought in the Texas invasion in the ’forties. He was a Texas Ranger. Rich is a grandson of that old warrior. You see what kind of blood he has. An’ he hasn’t any reason to love the Tates, has he?”
“I reckon not,” rejoined Tanner, gloomily, yet he thrilled in his gloom.
“It’s Rich I’m afraid of, an’ not Nesta.”
“Wal, it’s the other way round with me,” returned Tanner, and he went out to look for the girl.
He sought her at the barn and the corral, along the trail, up the gulch at his own cabin, and farther on, without success. Mescal Ridge could easily have hidden a thousand girls. Then returning to the creek valley he went farther, and at last espied Nesta’s fair head shining in the sun. She was sitting above the Rock Pool. This was a deep dark eddy at the head of the valley, a lonesome spot, where the slopes met in a V-shaped notch. Only from one place could Tanner have espied the girl, and it had been just accident that he had done so. He descended the bank and clambered over the boulders, and eventually gained the huge flat rock upon which she sat.
Tanner was old in years, yet at close sight of Nesta Ames he grew young again. She personified youth, beauty, love, tragedy. The environment seemed in harmony with all these. It was a wild, romantic spot. The leafless sycamore branches spread out over the rocks and the dark pool. A low roar of falling water came from up the creek. Opposite the yellow cliff bulged out, with its niches
