to shine,” he remarked. “We’re in for the spring thaw an’ then damn few wheels will turn on these ’dobe roads until she dries up.”
“How will we get around?” inquired Paul.
“Shanks’ mare and ’dobe pancakes,” the old fellow replied enigmatically, and left Paul to ponder that cryptic remark.
Paul enjoyed watching the Indians ride in on their ragged mustangs, hang around the porch and inside the post for hours before trading, and then ride away. He had at last seen some picturesque braves and squaws. But Natasha, despite her unkempt garb, was, so far, the one nearest approaching beauty. She lived back in one of the hogans behind the knoll and spent a good part of her time idling at the post.
It was surprising how many Indians came and went during the hours of midday. Paul seldom failed to see one or two dark riders on the horizon line. And there were a dozen or more ponies haltered at the rail or standing bridles down. Sheep and goat pelts, coyote hides, bags of wool and blankets were the principal articles of barter. The fact that very often a squaw brought in something to trade and went away without leaving it had strengthened Paul’s conviction that the trader drove close bargains. Paul did not like the woman Belmont called Sister and had not been able to define her status there to his complete satisfaction. She appeared to be cook, housekeeper, saleswoman, and was never idle. She was a large woman, under forty, dark-eyed and hard-featured, and seemed to be a silent, watchful, repressed person of strong passions.
Paul had watched the woman wait upon half a dozen Indians, and though he could not understand a word of the language spoken, he deduced much from her look, her tone, her deliberation and care in weighing sugar or cutting goods, and from the sloe-black, sullen eyes of her customers. These Indians had become dependent upon the whites and they were a driven race. Right at the outset, Paul divined that which stirred his pity and augmented his antagonism.
While Paul sat there, thinking of these things, and using his eyes, the girl Natasha came out, sucking a red-and-white stick of candy.
How wonderfully dark was her hair—a soft dead black! Her eyes matched it. Her skin was dark too, the color of bronze. It had a suggestion of red. She wore a band of colored beads round her head and her hair was tied up behind in a short braid wound with white cord. Paul made a guess at her age—about sixteen. These Indian girls matured early and Natasha appeared to be developing voluptuously out of the girlhood stage.
It increased Paul’s interest in her to become aware that, shy and wild as she was, she was covertly observing him. And when he was sure that her dusky, fleeting glances returned again and again to him he felt bound to admit that Natasha possessed at least one of the same rather disconcerting tendencies of the young female of the white race.
Kintell’s arrival with Belmont in a much overloaded wagon put an end to Paul’s mild flirtation. It also, he was quick to notice, put an end to Natasha’s mood. As Belmont leaped out she flounced away with a whirl of skirts that showed her bare, shapely brown legs above her moccasins. Paul wondered why her expression had changed so suddenly, and why she had vanished at the mere sight of the trader.
“Hyar you are, Manning,” called Belmont boisterously, handing Paul some documents. “All fixed up, money got an’ receipted. When you sign on the dotted line we’re set to make a million.”
“Thanks. If they need only my signature we’ll be on our way in a jiffy,” replied Paul with a laugh.
“Babbit’s runnin’ eighty thousand head of cattle, Miller brothers most as many, Cartwright cattle outfit fifty thousand—all on range no better’n ours. Kintell had it wrong about the price of cattle. Thirty-eight dollars a head for two-year-olds! Manning, there’s millions in it!”
“Wal, boss, heah’s mail from Kansas City,” drawled Kintell, with his lazy smile. “Letters, papers, magazines—shore a lot of truck thet I opine will make you ferget you’re a cowboy on the lone prairee.”
“Maybe it will,” declared Paul, eying with interest two fat envelopes addressed in his sister Anne’s neat handwriting. Besides there was a formidable array of letters, from his parents, lawyers, bankers, and employees. Paul had quite forgotten that he owned a thousand-acre farm, huge wheat elevators, a store, an apartment house and other property.
“Wess, can you compose business letters, pound a typewriter, add columns of figures, and perform other secretarial duties?” queried Paul calmly.
“My Gawd, boss, I swear I cain’t hardly write my name. An’ as for figgers, say, I could add up a column one hundred times an’ come out with one hundred different answers.”
“How on earth will you be my right-hand man, then?” protested Paul, for the fun of seeing Wess’s confusion.
“Wal, I can fork a hawse, sling a diamond—hitch, rope an’ hawg-tie a steer—an’ throw a gun,” declared the cowboy somberly. “Reckon thet’s aboot all you’ll need round heah.”
“I was kidding you, Wess. . . . Did you buy the books?”
“Say, thet bookman near dropped daid. Said he had only a few on yore list, but would send for the others.”
“Okay. Let’s rustle my bags and see if I can turn around in my room afterward.”
It required four trips for each of them to unload the wagon, and on the last one, when Paul staggered into the long corridor behind the overburdened cowboy, he saw Louise Belmont standing in the doorway at the other end. She smiled at Wess. And after he had stumbled into Paul’s room she smiled at Paul too, and said: “Looks as if you were going to stay awhile.”
“This load does—indeed,” panted Paul, halting at his door to set down three heavy bags.
“I am—glad,” she added hesitantly.
“Thanks. The same goes for me—too,” replied Paul constrainedly. It was impossible not to meet her eyes. And this time he met them fully and penetratingly, with a freedom he had not before permitted himself. He was to see the gladness she had confessed—a shining lovely light—dispel that dark and haunting shadow which had seemed so apparent a moment ago. Paul sustained a distinct shock, not so much at the loveliness of the eyes, but at the subtle intimation that his presence there for an indefinite period could cause such a transformation.
“It’s so terrible here. . . . I hate . . .” She checked her speech. Instantly Paul realized that she was not a child, that she was not afraid or shy but passionately candid. But his surprise, his pause, his piercing gaze, which no doubt forced her to think of him as a young man, a stranger, different, sympathetically and impellingly drawn to her, brought a flush to her pale face.
Paul wanted to say that perhaps he could make it a little less lonely and hateful for her there—that he had books, magazines, music. But something inhibited him. This moment did not seem one for kindly courtesy. He did not know what it called for, but he knew it was not the time.
Her lips parted, her gaze drooped, and she turned away with the red receding from her cheeks.
Paul must have worn a strange expression on his face when he entered his room, for Wess, after one gray glance at it, threw up his hands.
“Say, cowboy, I didn’t tell you to stick ’em up,” declared Paul testily.
“Not in so many words, pard,” drawled Kintell, and sat down amidst the baggage.
“All
