Peak and Prairie | Page 7

I didn't know what else to call him, and as he'd been
delivered out of the hands of the Philistines----"
"That's a good one!" cried the ranchman. "Come here, David. You've
got a name now as well as a locket. Do you hear that?"
David had established himself between his master and his rescuer, and
looked from one to the other with evident satisfaction. They were soon
engaged in an amicable conversation, quite unconscious of the picture
they were forming. The tall ranchman, clad in full cowboy
paraphernalia, his extended legs encased in leathern "shaps" decorated
with long fringes, his belt of rattlesnake-skin, his loose shirt showing a
triangle of bronzed throat, in his hand the broad sombrero clasped
about with a silver band.
Little Mrs. Nancy sitting upright in her chair, in her neat old black

gown, holding the forgotten bonnet in her lap, watched her picturesque
visitor with the greatest interest. And looking up into the delicate little
old face, he noted all the sweetness and brightness which had so long
been lost upon the world. To make a clean breast of it, the two fell
frankly in love with each other upon the spot, and before the stranger
had departed, he had persuaded her to visit his ranch with him the very
next Sunday.
"But I don't know what to call you," she said, after having agreed upon
this wild escapade.
"That's so," said he. "I go by the name of Wat Warren out here, but they
used to call me Walter at home. I wish you would call me Walter."
"It's a pretty name," she said. "I thought some of calling my boy Walter
at first."
Warren was on the point of departure, and a sudden embarrassment
seemed to seize him. He had his hand in his trousers' pocket. "I 'most
forgot the money for the license," he stammered, as he pulled out a
couple of silver dollars.
Nobody knows what came over Mrs. Nancy, but she suddenly found
she could not take the money.
"Oh, that's of no consequence," she said, quite as though she had had at
her command the whole treasury surplus of a few years ago. "I should
like to make David a present of the license;" and as her two visitors
departed at full gallop, she sat down in a flutter of pleasurable
excitement.
How surprising it all was! She looked back upon the last hour quite
incredulous. She felt as though she had known this strange young man
all her life. Not that he had told her much about his own concerns. On
the contrary, after complimenting her on the subject of David's collar
and David's bath, he had got her talking about herself; and she had told
him about Willie, and about Atchison, and about her desire to go home
to New England.

"My sakes!" said she to herself; "what a chatterbox I'm getting to be in
my old age! What must he have thought of me?" But in her heart she
knew he had not thought any harm of her confidence. There had been
no mistaking the sympathy in that sunburnt face, and if there had been
any doubt remaining, the hearty grip of the rough hand, which she still
felt upon her palm, would have set her mind quite at rest.
But if Mrs. Nancy wondered at herself on Tuesday, she had fairly lost
all track of her own identity when, on Sunday, she found herself seated
beside her broad-shouldered friend in a light wagon, bowling over the
prairies behind a pair of frisky four-year-olds, while David bounded
beside them or scampered about in the vain pursuit of prairie-dogs.
"Do you feel afraid?" asked her host, looking protectingly down upon
the tiny figure at his side.
"Not a mite," she declared. "I never was one of the scary kind."
They had left the mountains behind them and were speeding to the
eastward. It seemed to her that a few hours of this rapid progress would
bring them to the very shores of the Atlantic. On and on they went over
the undulating yellow plains. As they neared the top of each rise of
ground Mrs. Nancy's heart stood still in a strange fantastic suspense.
Would there be trees over beyond, or lakes, or rivers, or perhaps a
green New England meadow?
"Isn't it like sailing?" said her companion as they bowled along.
"I never went sailing," Mrs. Nancy replied. "I've only been out in a boat
on the pond, and I think this is pleasanter."
They did little talking on that drive. Mrs. Nancy was too entirely
absorbed in her new experience to have much to say. But when at last
they reached the ranch, lying like an oasis in the vast barren, with
young corn sprouting in the