baskets, scarfs, beaded ornaments, and other small articles that would lend color and attractiveness to a room.
Arguments, however, anent the most becoming positions for the last batch of things Paul had bought increased with every objection he raised.
“Lemme do this, pard. You haven’t no taste atall,” complained Kintell.
“Say, you big lummox, I’ve forgotten more taste than you ever had,” retorted Paul. “But I suppose if I don’t bar you from this room you will fuss about it. So go ahead, interior decorator. Spread yourself.”
“Interior decorator? Haw! Haw! Thet’s a good one, by gosh. I shore have painted my insides seventeen shades of red. . . . No more, though, pard. Thet last an’ only drunk of yores queered me. I’m on the water wagon now, an’ what’s more, henceforth you air on the wagon, too. Savvy?”
“Water wagon, eh? That means Bitter Seeps.”
“Wal, Bitter Seeps, then,” declared Kintell, as if he had been dealt a body blow. “Hell! We cain’t stay heah always. We’ll live cheap, save our dough, an’ when we got ten thousand haid, we’ll sell an’ pull fer a decent ranch. Find ourselves a couple of swell girls an’ settle down fer life. How aboot thet, pard?”
“Sounded great, up to the last,” rejoined Paid with a dubious laugh. “I wish I could think so. . . . But look here, Wess.” And Paul lifted from the bed a large photograph of a lovely face that had been responsible for their isolation at Bitter Seeps.
“My Gawd, pard! You ain’t gonna leave thet oot?” entreated Kintell.
“Yes. Safest way, Wess. I’ll put it on my bureau.”
“Lemme see.” The cowboy took the photograph and glared at it. He shook his lean head, and it was certain that resentment slowly was giving way to reluctant admiration. “Pard, if a man could hawg-tie a woman like her, an’ keep her where he could always have her, why, I reckon he might be fairly happy.”
“Wess, try and spring that idea on some of these females today.”
“I’m not joshin’. I mean thet. . . . Lordy, but she’s pretty to look at! An’ men air such pore fish. . . . Paul, I reckon the good Lord never had nothin’ to do with creatin’ lovely women.”
“Whatever are you doing?” called a soft voice from the corridor. “Such pounding and shouting . . . ! Oh, how nice and cozy!”
Louise stood framed in the doorway, graceful, big-eyed, strangely disturbing, at least to Paul.
“Come in,” he said constrainedly, wondering if she had heard Wess’s doubtful approbation concerning her sex.
“Howdy, lady,” drawled Wess, as he tossed the photograph back on the bed, where it flopped to expose the face that had inspired the cowboy to his Homeric language.
“Oh, what a lovely girl!” she exclaimed as she entered. “Please may I see?”
Paul handed her the picture with conflicting emotions. There followed another moment of silence.
“Your sister?” she asked.
“No. I have one of Anne here somewhere.”
“How beautiful! I never saw anyone so lovely. . . . Who then?” she asked directly, her strange eyes seeking Paul’s face.
It was not often that Paul was at a loss for words. He felt a rush of blood to his cheeks. Kintell relieved the situation with a laugh, not altogether mirthful.
“Aw, thet’s only an old flame of the boss’s,” he drawled. But his gray gaze held a singularly bold expression. Wess did not intend to allow any doubts to accumulate in her mind.
“Old flame is right,” spoke up Paul suddenly, no longer tongue-tied. “I was engaged to this girl once, Mrs. Belmont.”
“Please don’t call me that,” she begged. “I told your cowboy I didn’t want to be called Mrs.”
“Boss, she did at thet, but I forgot,” admitted Wess.
“How shall I address you?” queried Paul.
“Louise—or Louie. I like Louie better,” she announced simply.
“Oh, I see,” replied Paul.
“So you were engaged to this beautiful girl once?” went on Louise, studying the photo. “I should think—for a man—once would be for good.”
“She gave me the gate,” said Paul frankly. He was glad that he could confess it.
“Jilted you!” exclaimed Louise incredulously.
“Rather hard to believe, isn’t it?” went on Paul lightly. “Young, handsome fellow, college graduate, good family—and rich.”
“Wal, Louise, she didn’t know he was rich,” interposed Wess.
“I don’t savvy you men,” returned the girl in confusion.
“Mrs. . . . Louise, I’m simple enough,” said Paul hastily. “Wess there is a perfect devil. Especially with women, I fancy. But as far as I’m concerned, perhaps I didn’t have the qualities to hold a woman, and so—” he broke off with a rather forced laugh.
“Oh, how could she?” cried Louise softly, and dropped the picture as if it burned her fingers. “So that was it.”
“That was what?” asked Paul curiously, conscious that her reaction was somehow sweet to him.
“I felt it—saw it in your eyes.”
“What?”
“That you had been hurt.”
“Yes, I was pretty badly hurt,” admitted Paul. “It was a bad case, I guess. But thanks to my cowboy pard here, I weathered it, a sadder, a wiser, and surely a better man. I must have been pretty much of a young fool, a conceited ass, and certainly no catch for a beautiful woman who loved society, travel, clothes, jewels.”
“Probably you’re very lucky to have escaped her,” declared Louise solemnly. Then with a tinge of melancholy, “You and I should be good friends.”
“Thank you. I’d be pleased, I’m sure. But just why—”
“Life has gone wrong for me too,” she interrupted bitterly.
“Indeed. I’m sorry, Louise. I guess I had a suspicion of it. . . . You mean the same way as I?”
Her voice was low. “No, I’ve never really loved anyone except, of course, my baby—but that’s different. . . . But when I . . .” Abruptly she paused, as if her thoughts were somehow beyond words.
“You mean—Belmont,” Paul blurted out almost fiercely. “But why did you. . . ?”
They were suddenly interrupted by Kintell who stepped down from the box to confront them, cool with eyes of gray fire. “Don’t talk so loud, you
