The Light of Western Stars | Page 5

and so she had telegraphed him from
New York, and also, a day later, from Chicago, where her traveling
friends had been delayed by illness. Nothing could have turned her
back then. Madeline had planned to arrive in El Cajon on October 3d,
her brother's birthday, and she had succeeded, though her arrival
occurred at the twenty-fourth hour. Her train had been several hours
late. Whether or not the message had reached Alfred's hands she had no
means of telling, and the thing which concerned her now was the fact
that she had arrived and he was not there to meet her.
It did not take long for thought of the past to give way wholly to the

reality of the present.
"I hope nothing has happened to Alfred," she said to herself. "He was
well, doing splendidly, the last time he wrote. To be sure, that was a
good while ago; but, then, he never wrote often. He's all right. Pretty
soon he'll come, and how glad I'll be! I wonder if he has changed."
As Madeline sat waiting in the yellow gloom she heard the faint,
intermittent click of the telegraph instrument, the low hum of wires, the
occasional stamp of an iron-shod hoof, and a distant vacant laugh rising
above the sounds of the dance. These commonplace things were new to
her. She became conscious of a slight quickening of her pulse.
Madeline had only a limited knowledge of the West. Like all of her
class, she had traveled Europe and had neglected America. A few
letters from her brother had confused her already vague ideas of plains
and mountains, as well as of cowboys and cattle. She had been
astounded at the interminable distance she had traveled, and if there
had been anything attractive to look at in all that journey she had
passed it in the night. And here she sat in a dingy little station, with
telegraph wires moaning a lonely song in the wind.
A faint sound like the rattling of thin chains diverted Madeline's
attention. At first she imagined it was made by the telegraph wires.
Then she heard a step. The door swung wide; a tall man entered, and
with him came the clinking rattle. She realized then that the sound
came from his spurs. The man was a cowboy, and his entrance recalled
vividly to her that of Dustin Farnum in the first act of "The Virginian."
"Will you please direct me to a hotel?" asked Madeline, rising.
The cowboy removed his sombrero, and the sweep he made with it and
the accompanying bow, despite their exaggeration, had a kind of rude
grace. He took two long strides toward her.
"Lady, are you married?"
In the past Miss Hammond's sense of humor had often helped her to
overlook critical exactions natural to her breeding. She kept silence,

and she imagined it was just as well that her veil hid her face at the
moment. She had been prepared to find cowboys rather striking, and
she had been warned not to laugh at them.
This gentleman of the range deliberately reached down and took up her
left hand. Before she recovered from her start of amaze he had stripped
off her glove.
"Fine spark, but no wedding-ring," he drawled. "Lady, I'm glad to see
you're not married."
He released her hand and returned the glove.
"You see, the only ho-tel in this here town is against boarding married
women."
"Indeed?" said Madeline, trying to adjust her wits to the situation.
"It sure is," he went on. "Bad business for ho-tels to have married
women. Keeps the boys away. You see, this isn't Reno."
Then he laughed rather boyishly, and from that, and the way he
slouched on his sombrero, Madeline realized he was half drunk. As she
instinctively recoiled she not only gave him a keener glance, but
stepped into a position where a better light shone on his face. It was
like red bronze, bold, raw, sharp. He laughed again, as if
good-naturedly amused with himself, and the laugh scarcely changed
the hard set of his features. Like that of all women whose beauty and
charm had brought them much before the world, Miss Hammond's
intuition had been developed until she had a delicate and exquisitely
sensitive perception of the nature of men and of her effect upon them.
This crude cowboy, under the influence of drink, had affronted her;
nevertheless, whatever was in his mind, he meant no insult.
"I shall be greatly obliged if you will show me to the hotel," she said.
"Lady, you wait here," he replied, slowly, as if his thought did not
come swiftly. "I'll go fetch the porter."

She thanked him, and as he went out, closing the door, she sat down in
considerable relief. It