The Highgrader | Page 5

her. He saw a slight
dark girl with amazingly live eyes and a lift to the piquant chin that was
arresting. His hat came off promptly.
"We didn't know anybody was at the Lodge," he explained.
"You wouldn't, of course," she nodded, and by way of explanation:
"Lady Farquhar is rather nervous. Of course we don't want to interfere
with your fun, but----"
"There will be no more fireworks at night. One of the boys had a
birthday and we were ventilating our enthusiasm. If we had known----"
"Kindly make sure it doesn't happen again, my good fellow," cut in
Verinder.
Kilmeny looked at him, then back at the girl. The dapper little man had
been weighed and found wanting. Henceforth, Verinder was not on the

map.
"Did you think we were wild Utes broke loose from the reservation? I
reckon we were some noisy. When the boys get to going good they
don't quite know when to stop."
The eyes of the young woman sparkled. The fisherman thought he had
never seen a face more vivid. Such charm as it held was too irregular
for beauty, but the spirit that broke through interested by reason of its
hint of freedom. She might be a caged bird, but her wings beat for the
open spaces.
"Were they going good last night?" she mocked prettily.
"Not real good, ma'am. You see, we had no town to shoot up, so we
just punctured the scenery. If we had known you were here----"
"You would have come and shot us up," she charged gayly.
Kilmeny laughed. "You're a good one, neighbor. But you don't need to
worry." He let his eyes admire her lazily. "Young ladies are too seldom
in this neck of the woods for the boys to hurt any. Give them a chance
and they would be real good to you, ma'am."
His audacity delighted Moya Dwight. "Do you think they would?"
"In our own barbaric way, of course."
"Do you ever scalp people?" she asked with innocent impudence.
"It's a young country," he explained genially.
"It has that reputation."
"You've been reading stories about us," he charged. "Now we'll be on
our good behavior just to show you."
"Thank you--if it isn't too hard."

"They're good boys, though they do forget it sometimes."
"I'm glad they do. They wouldn't interest me if they were too good.
What's the use of coming to Colorado if it is going to be as civilized as
England?"
Verinder, properly scandalized at this free give and take with a
haphazard savage of the wilds, interrupted in the interest of propriety.
"I'll not detain you any longer, my man. You may get at your fishing."
The Westerner paid not the least attention to him. "My gracious, ma'am,
we think we're a heap more civilized than England. We ain't got any
militant suffragettes in this country--at least, I've never met up with
any."
"They're a sign of civilization," the young woman laughed. "They
prove we're still alive, even if we are asleep."
"We've got you beat there, then. All the women vote here. What's the
matter with you staying and running for governor?"
"Could I--really?" she beamed.
"Really and truly. Trouble with us is that we're so civilized we bend
over backward with it. You're going to find us mighty tame. The
melodramatic romance of the West is mostly in storybooks. What there
was of it has gone out with the cowpuncher."
"What's a cowpuncher?"
"He rides the range after cattle."
"Oh--a cowboy. But aren't there any cowboys?"
"They're getting seldom. The barb wire fence has put them out of
business. Mostly they're working for the moving picture companies
now," he smiled.
Mr. Verinder prefaced with a formal little cough a second attempt to

drive away this very assured native. "As I was saying, Miss Dwight, I
wouldn't mind going into Parliament, you know, if it weren't for the
bally labor members. I'm rather strong on speaking--that sort of thing,
you know. Used to be a dab at it. But I couldn't stand the bounders that
get in nowadays. Really, I couldn't."
"And I had so counted on the cowboys. I'm going to be disappointed, I
think," Miss Dwight said to the Westerner quietly.
Verinder had sense enough to know that he was being punished. He had
tried to put the Westerner out of the picture and found himself
eliminated instead. An angry flush rose to his cheeks.
"That's the mistake you all make," Kilmeny told her. "The true romance
of the West isn't in its clothes and its trappings."
"Where is it?" she asked.
"In its spirit--in the hope and the courage born of the wide plains and
the clean hills--in its big democracy and its freedom from convention.
The West is a condition of mind."
Miss Dwight was