Jean of the Lazy A | Page 4

was warm, and
cloud-shadows drifted lazily across the coulee with the breeze that blew
from the west. You never would dream that this was the last day,--the
last few hours even,--when the Lazy A would be the untroubled home
of three persons of whose lives it formed so great a part.
At noon the hens were hovering their chickens in the shade of the
mower which Lite was overhauling during his spare time, getting it
ready for the hay that was growing apace out there in the broad mouth
of the coulee. The rooster was wallowing luxuriously in a dusty spot in
the corral. The young colt lay stretched out on the fat of its side in the
sun, sound asleep. The sorrel mare lay beside it, asleep also, with her
head thrown up against her shoulder. Somewhere in a shed a calf was
bawling in bored lonesomeness away from its mother feeding down the
pasture. And over all the coulee and the buildings nestled against the
bluff at its upper end was spread that atmosphere of homey comfort and
sheltered calm which surrounds always a home that is happy.
Lite Avery, riding toward home just when the shadows were beginning
to grow long behind him, wondered if Jean would be back by the time
he reached the ranch. He hoped so, with a vague distaste at finding the
place empty of her cheerful presence. Be looked at his watch; it was

nearly four o'clock. She ought to be home by half-past four or five,
anyway. He glanced sidelong at Jim and quietly slackened his pace a
little. Jim was telling one of those long, rambling tales of the little
happenings of a narrow life, and Lite was supposed to be listening
instead of thinking about when Jean would return home. Jim believed
he was listening, and drove home the point of his story.
"Yes, sir, them's his very words. Art Osgood heard him. He'll do it, too,
take it from me, Crofty is shore riled up this time."
"Always is," Lite observed, without paying much attention. "I'll turn off
here, Jim, and cut across. Got some work I want to get done yet
to-night. So long."
He swung away from his companion, whose trail to the Bar Nothing
led him straight west, passing the Lazy A coulee well out from its
mouth, toward the river. Lite could save a half mile by bearing off to
the north and entering the coulee at the eastern side and riding up
through the pasture. He wanted to see how the grass was coming on,
anyway. The last rain should have given it a fresh start.
He was in no great hurry, after all; he had merely been bored with Jim's
company and wanted to go on alone. And then he could get the fire
started for Jean. Lite's life was running very smoothly indeed; so
smoothly that his thoughts occupied themselves largely with little
things, save when they concerned themselves with Jean, who had been
away to school for a year and had graduated from "high," as she called
it, just a couple of weeks ago, and had come home to keep house for
dad and Lite. The novelty of her presence on the ranch was still fresh
enough to fill his thoughts with her slim attractiveness. Town hadn't
spoiled her, he thought glowingly. She was the same good little
pal,--only she was growing up pretty fast, now. She was a young lady
already.
So, thinking of her with the brightening of spirits which is the first
symptom of the world-old emotion called love, Lite rounded the
eastern arm of the bluff and came within sight of the coulee spread
before him, shaped like the half of a huge platter with a high rim of

bluff on three sides.
His first involuntary glance was towards the house, and there was
unacknowledged expectancy in his eyes. But he did not see Jean, nor
any sign that she had returned. Instead, he saw her father just mounting
in haste at the corral. He saw him swing his quirt down along the side
of his horse and go tearing down the trail, leaving the wire gate flat
upon the ground behind him,--which was against all precedent.
Lite quickened his own pace. He did not know why big Aleck Douglas
should be hitting that pace out of the coulee, but since Aleck's pace was
habitually unhurried, the inference was plain enough that there was
some urgent need for haste. Lite let down the rails of the barred gate
from the meadow into the pasture, mounted, and went galloping across
the uneven sod. His first anxious thought was for the girl. Had
something happened to her?
At the stable he looked and saw that Jean's saddle did not hang