In the centre was even a high four-seated trap. The four horses stood tied to the wheels. They were good looking animals and possessed the (then) astounding peculiarity of reached manes and banged tails.
"Who's that outfit belong to?" asked Boyd, his attention attracted by the smartness of detail of all this.
An expression of disapproval clouded the banker's prominent eyes.
"Young fellow named Corbell," he replied shortly. "Wild young fool. Owns a ranch out beyond here."
They left the paddock and made their way up the knoll and across the lawn to the ranch house.
The Colonel and Mrs. Peyton stood at the foot of the three veranda steps receiving their guests. Many of the latter were strolling about beneath the trees and on the lawn; others were wandering in groups down the slope and across the way to the picnic grove. The women looked very cool and fresh in light coloured dresses. Among those who lingered as by right on the lawns were the élite of Arguello, and they bore themselves accordingly. The men were very bluff and sententious but with a roving eye on the punchbowls. The women wore huge excrescences called bustles and little hat-bonnets on the front of their heads and they walked with elegance. To the elders all this imparted an air of great dignity and virtue; but some of the younger, fresh-faced dashing creatures managed to make of these rather awful appurtenances weapons for conquest. They flirted the bustles from one side to the other; or they looked out from under square banged hair beneath the little hats, and great was the slaughter.
III
The stream past the Colonel and his wife swelled and slackened, but never ceased. As Boyd moved on after his conventional greeting, he heard the Colonel mention the name Corbell, and turned in curiosity to see the owner of the four-in-hand. He looked upon a rather short, dapper individual with a long, lean brown face, snapping black eyes, and a little moustache waxed to straight needle points. This man was exquisitely dressed in rough clothes of Norfolk cut—in that time and place!—a soft silk shirt and collar, a pastel necktie. He wore no jewelry but a large signet ring. His concession to the West was his hat, which was probably the widest, highest, and utmost turned out of the factory. With him seemed to be somewhat of a group of young men; of whom, however, Boyd noticed particularly only one. Indeed, that one could hardly escape notice. He stood well over six feet and bulged with enormous frame and muscles. His complexion was very blond, so that the ruddiness of his open-air skin showed in fierce and pleasing contrast to his bleached moustache and eyebrows. To make it all more emphatic he wore garments of small black and white checks. It would have been impossible to compute how many thousands of these little squares there were spread abroad over his great round chest and thick arms alone.
"Lord, there's a strong-looking chap. How'd you like to tackle him, Ken?" commented Mr. Boyd, as they drew apart.
"He's powerful big. He looks strong."
"He is strong," broke in a stranger who had overheard. "I saw him once crawl under a felled tree and raise it on the broad of his back."
"Who is he?"
"Rancher. Owns the next place to Corbell—that little dude there. Named Hunter, Bill Hunter. They call him Big Bill. Somebody once said he looked pneumatic."
"Why?"
"Looks sort of as if he had been blowed up with an air pump."
"That, also, is a jest," stated Boyd.
Kenneth laughed joyously.
"I wonder if he'd collapse if you stuck a pin in him?"
"I reckon something would collapse," agreed the stranger drily. "You from the East, I take it. Out for long?"
"Yes. I don't know. Depends on father," said Kenneth, indicating Mr. Boyd, who had by now strolled away with the banker.
"Old man sick, eh?"
"He's here for his health," admitted Kenneth.
The stranger, who was long and lank and solemn, produced a match, carefully whittled it to a point and thrust it in his mouth. He did this simple act with such a purposeful air of deliberation that Kenneth found himself watching with interest and in silence.
"My name's Paige, Jim Paige," said that individual; then: "I run the main harness shop in this place—carved leather, silver work, all that stuff."
"My name is Boyd," reciprocated Kenneth. "I don't run anything."
Paige grinned appreciatively.
"Know anybody round here?"
"Not a soul. We've only been here a week."
"A week! And don't know nobody!" Paige cast a quizzical side glance. "And you don't look extra bashful, either. Might know you were from the East."
"Have you ever been East?" countered Kenneth.
"Yes, once."
"Like it?"
"No."
"What was the matter?"
"Well, I'll tell you," drawled Paige, with an air of great privacy. "Back East when you don't do nothing, you feel guilty: but out here when you don't do nothing, you don't give a damn. But look a here: you've got to know some of the little she-devils we raise around here, a young fellow like you."
He seized Kenneth firmly above the elbow, and, before that young man knew what was up, propelled him to a group of young people giggling consumedly after the fashion of the very young.
"Hey, you, Dora. Look here; I want you to meet up with Mr. Boyd of the effete East. He's been here a week and don't know anybody and seemingly hasn't got spunk enough to get acquainted."
He surveyed the group a tolerant moment, then sauntered away, his lank figure moving loosely in his clothes, the sharpened match in the corner of his mouth, his eyes wandering lazily and humorously from group to group. Kenneth, rooted to the spot, blushing to the ears, found himself facing a laughing mischievous group of young people. He stuttered something about intrusion, his mind murderously pursuing the departing Jim Paige. There could be no doubt that these were of the town's best—and to be thrust in this way by a harness maker——
The laughing mischievous girl addressed as Dora broke in on his agony.
"You must not mind old Jim Paige Mr. Boyd," she was saying. "He brought us all up, fairly, and taught us to ride and even to walk, I do believe. My name is Dora Stanley. We are truly glad to meet you. Look about you, if you don't believe it. Count us. Eight girls and two men——" and then, having by this chatter given him time to recover his self-possession, Miss Stanley presented him more formally to the members of the group.
In the meantime the Colonel continued to greet an unending procession of his guests. They filed before him singly, in groups, in droves. There were many prominent in the life of the place who lingered importantly; there were many plainly dressed, awkward farmers and their wives, labouring men, Mexicans who uttered their greetings and hurried past, a little uncomfortable until they had lost themselves in the crowd of their own kind at the barbecue grounds. The Colonel knew them all by name, and he greeted each and every one of them with a genuine and cordial
