The Desert and the Sown | Page 3

the weeds and things, but if Paul wants game trophies for your country-house, he can load a pack-train."
Mrs. Bogardus continued to be amused, in a quiet way. "He calls them relics of barbarism! He would as soon festoon his walls with scalps, as decorate them with the heads of beautiful animals,--nearer the Creator's design than most men, he would say."
"He's right there! But that doesn't change the distinction between men and animals. He is your son, madam--and he's going to be mine. But, fine boy as he is, I call him a crank of the first water."
"You'll find him quite good to Moya," Mrs. Bogardus remarked dispassionately. "And he's not quite twenty-four."
"Very true. Well, I should send him into the woods for the sake of getting a little sense into him, of an every-day sort. He 'll take in sanity with every breath."
"And you don't think it's too late in the season for them to go out?"
There was no change in Mrs. Bogardus's voice, unconcerned as it was; yet the colonel felt at once that this simple question lay at the root of all her previous skirmishing.
"The guide will decide as to that," he said definitely. "If it is, he won't go out with them. They have got a good man, you say?"
"They are waiting for a good man; they have waited too long, I think. He is expected in with another party on Monday, perhaps, Paul is to meet the Bowens at Challis, where they buy their outfit. I do believe"--she laughed constrainedly--"that he is going up there more to head them off than for any other reason."
"How do you mean?"
"Oh, it's very stupid of them! They seem to think an army post is part of the public domain. They have been threatening, if Paul gives up the trip, to come down here on a gratuitous visit."
"Why, let them come by all means! The more the merrier! We will quarter them on the garrison at large."
"Wherever they were quartered, they would be here all the time. They are not intimate friends of Paul's. _Mrs._ Bowen is--a very great friend. He is her right-hand in all that Hartley House work. The boys are just fashionable young men."
"Can't they go hunting without Paul?"
"Wheels within wheels!" Mrs. Bogardus sighed impatiently. "Hunting trips are expensive, and--when young men are living on their fathers, it is convenient sometimes to have a third. However, Paul goes, I half believe, to prevent their making a descent upon us here."
"Well; I should ask them to come, or make it plain they were not expected."
"Oh, would you?--if their mother was one of the nicest women, and your friend? Besides, the reservation does not cover the whole valley. Banks Bowen talks of a mine he wants to look at--I don't think it will make much difference to the mine! This is simply to say that I wish Paul cared more about the trip for its own sake."
"Well, frankly, I think he's better out of the way for the next fortnight. The girls ought to go to bed early, and keep the roses in their cheeks for the wedding. Moya's head is full of her frocks and fripperies. She is trying to run a brace of sewing women; and all those boxes are coming from the East to be 'inspected, and condemned' mostly. The child seems to make a great many mistakes, doesn't she? About every other day I see a box as big as a coffin in the hall, addressed to some dry-goods house, 'returned by ----'"
"Moya should have sent to me for her things," said Mrs. Bogardus. "I am the one who makes her return them. She can do much better when she is in town herself. It doesn't matter, for the few weeks they will be away, what she wears. I shall take her measures home with me and set the people to work. She has never been fitted in her life."
The colonel looked rather aghast. He had seldom heard Mrs. Bogardus speak with so much animation. He wondered if really his household was so very far behind the times.
"It's very kind of you, I'm sure, if Moya will let you. Most girls think they can manage these matters for themselves."
"It's impossible to shop by mail," Mrs. Bogardus said decidedly. "They always keep a certain style of things for the Western and Southern trade."
The colonel was crushed. Mrs. Bogardus rose, and he picked up her handkerchief, breathing a little hard after the exertion. She passed out, thanking him with a smile as he opened the door. In the hall she stopped to choose a wrap from a collection of unconventional garments hanging on a rack of moose horns.
"I think I shall go out," she said. "The air is quite soft to-night. Do you know which way the