Judith of Blue Lake Ranch | Page 4

I'm sick of the job."
"That would be Luke's girl, Judith?"

"Yes. Two of the three owners' kids, writing me at every turn. And the
third owner, Timothy Gray, the only sensible one of the lot, has just up
and sold out his share, and I suppose I'll be hearing next that some
superannuated female in an old lady's home has inherited a fortune and
bought him out. Why, do you think I'd hold on to my job here for ten
minutes if it wasn't that my reputation is in making a go of the thing?
And now you, the best man I've got, throw me down!"
"I don't see," said Lee slowly, after a brief pause, "just what good it
does to sell a string of real horses like they were sheep. Half of that
herd is real horse-flesh, I tell you."
"Hampton wants money. And besides, a horse is a horse."
"Is it?" A hard smile touched Lee's lips. "That's just where a man
makes a mistake. Some horses are cows, some are clean spirit. You can
stake your boots on that, Trevors."
"Well," snapped Trevors, "suppose you are right. I've got to raise three
thousand dollars in a hurry. Where will I get it?"
"Who is offering fifty dollars a head for those horses?" asked Lee
abruptly. "It might be the Big Western Lumber Company?"
"Yes."
"Uh-huh. Well, you can kill the rats in your own barn, Trevors. I'll go
look for a job somewhere else."
Bayne Trevors, his lips tightly compressed, his eyes steady, a faint,
angry flush in his cheeks, checked what words were flowing to his
tongue and looked keenly at his foreman. Lee met his regard with cool
unconcern. Then, just as Trevors was about to speak, there came an
interruption.

II

JUDITH TAKES A HAND
The quiet of the morning was broken by the quick thud of a horse's
shod hoofs on the hard ground of the courtyard. Bud Lee in the
doorway turned to see a strange horse drawn up so that upon its four
bunched hoofs it slid to a standstill; saw a slender figure, which in the
early light he mistook for a boy, slip out of the saddle. And then,
suddenly, a girl, the spurs of her little riding-boots making jingling
music on the veranda, her riding-quirt swinging from her wrist, had
stepped by him and was looking with bright, snapping eyes from him to
Trevors.
"I am Judith Sanford," she announced briefly, and there was a note in
her young voice which went ringing, bell-like, through the still air. "Is
one of you men Bayne Trevors?"
A quick, shadowy smile came and went upon the lips of Bud Lee. It
struck him that she might have said in just that way: "I am the Queen of
England and I am running my own kingdom!" He looked at her with
eyes filled with open interest and curiosity, making swift appraisal of
the flush in the sun-browned cheeks, the confusion of dark, curling hair
disturbed by her furious riding, the vivid, red-blooded beauty of her.
Mouth and eyes and the very carriage of the dark head upon her superb
white throat announced boldly and triumphantly that here was no
wax-petalled lily of a lady but rather a maid whose blood, like the
blood of the father before her, was turbulent and hot and must boil like
a wild mountain-stream at opposition. Her eyes, a little darker than
Trevors's, were the eyes of fighting stock.
Trevors, irritated already, turned hard eyes up at her from under
corrugated brows. He did not move in his chair. Nor did Lee stir except
that now he removed his hat.
"I am Trevors," said the general manager curtly. "And, whether you are
Judith Sanford or the Queen of Siam, I am busy right now."
"He got the queen idea, too!" was the quick thought back of Bud Lee's
fading smile.

"You talk soft with me, Trevors!" cried the girl passionately, "if you
want to hold your job five minutes! I'll tolerate none of your high and
mighty airs!"
Trevors laughed at her, a sneer in his laugh. "I talk the way I talk," he
answered roughly. "If people don't like the sound of it they don't have
to listen! Lee, you round up those seventy-three horses and crowd them
over the ridge to the lumber-camp. Or, if you want to quit, quit now
and I'll send a sane man."
The hot color mounted higher in the girl's face, a new anger leaped up
in her eyes.
"Take no orders this morning that I don't give," she said, for a moment
turning her eyes upon Lee. And to Trevors: "Busy or not busy, you take
time right now to answer my questions. I've got your reports and