Ridgway of Montana | Page 8

moved to a slight, disdainful smile, but it
evidenced scarcely the appreciation that anybody less impervious to
criticism than Ridgway would have cared to see.
CHAPTER 2.
THE FREEBOOTER
When next Virginia Balfour saw Waring Ridgway she was driving her
trap down one of the hit-or-miss streets of Mesa, where derricks,
shaft-houses, and gray slag-dumps shoulder ornate mansions
conglomerate of many unharmonious details of architecture. To Miss
Balfour these composites and their owners would have been joys
unalloyed except for the microbe of society ambition that was infecting
the latter, and transforming them from simple, robust, self-reliant
Westerners into a class of servile, nondescript newly rich, that
resembled their unfettered selves as much as tame bears do the grizzlies
of their own Rockies. As she had once complained smilingly to Hobart,
she had not come to the West to study ragged edges of the social fringe.
She might have done that in New York.
Virginia was still a block or two from the court-house on the hill, when
it emptied into the street a concourse of excited men. That this was an
occasion of some sort it was easy to guess, and of what sort she began
to have an inkling, when Ridgway came out, the center of a circle of

congratulating admirers. She was obliged to admit that he accepted
their applause without in the least losing his head. Indeed, he took it as
imperturbably as did Hobart, against whom a wave of the enthusiasm
seemed to be directed in the form of a jeer, when he passed down the
steps with Mott, one of the Consolidated lawyers. Miss Balfour timed
her approach to meet Hobart at a right angle.
"What is it all about?" she asked, after he had reached her side.
"Judge Purcell has just decided the Never Say Die case in favor of Mr.
Ridgway and against the Consolidated."
"Is that a great victory for him?"
"Yes, it's a victory, though, of course, we appeal," admitted Hobart.
"But we can't say we didn't expect it," he added cheerfully.
"Mayn't I give you a lift if you are going down-town?" she said quickly,
for Ridgway, having detached himself from the group, was working
toward her, and she felt an instinctive sympathy for the man who had
lost. Furthermore, she had something she wanted to tell him before he
heard it on the tongue of rumor.
"Since you are so kind;" and he climbed to the place beside her.
"Congratulate me, Miss Balfour," demanded Ridgway, as he shook
hands with her, nodding coolly at her companion. "I'm a million dollars
richer than I was an hour ago. I have met the enemy and he is mine."
Virginia, resenting the bad taste of his jeer at the man who sat beside
her, misunderstood him promptly. "Did you say you had met the enemy
and won his mine?"
He laughed. "You're a good one!"
"Thank you very much for this unsolicited testimonial," she said
gravely. "In the meantime, to avoid a congestion of traffic, we'll be
moving, if you will kindly give me back my front left wheel."

He did not lift his foot from the spoke on which it rested. "My
congratulations," he reminded her.
"I wish you all the joy in your victory that you deserve, and I hope the
supreme court will reaffirm the decision of Judge Purcell, if it is a just
one," was the form in which she acceded to his demand.
She flicked her whip, and Ridgway fell back, laughing. "You've been
subsidized by the Consolidated," he shouted after her.
Hobart watched silently the businesslike directness with which the girl
handled the ribbons. She looked every inch the thoroughbred in her
well-made covert coat and dainty driving gauntlets. The grace of the
alert, slender figure, the perfect poise of the beautiful little tawny head,
proclaimed her distinction no less certainly than the fine modeling of
the mobile face. It was a distinction that stirred the pulse of his emotion
and disarmed his keen, critical sense. Ridgway could study her with an
amused, detached interest, but Hobart's admiration had traveled past
that point. He found it as impossible to define her charm as to evade it.
Her inheritance of blood and her environment should have made her a
finished product of civilization, but her salty breeziness, her nerve,
vivid as a flame at times, disturbed delightfully the poise that held her
when in repose.
When Virginia spoke, it was to ask abruptly: "Is it really his mine?"
"Judge Purcell says so."
"But do YOU think so--down in the bottom of your heart?"
"Wouldn't I naturally be prejudiced?"
"I suppose you would. Everybody in Mesa seems to have taken sides
either with Mr. Ridgway or the Consolidated. Still, you have an option.
Is he what his friends proclaim