The Moccasin Ranch | Page 7

to go to an Eastern college.
Bailey contrived to look very stern and very busy whenever she came in, but she was wise in ways of men, and treated him as if he were a good comrade, and so gradually he came to talk to her almost as freely as with Blanche Burke.
He did not know that Jim almost invariably went over to Burke's shanty--even when he walked home with Miss Clayton. Rivers did not impress Estelle favorably. She was not one to be moved by flattery, nor by dimples in male cheeks. She accepted his company pleasantly, but there were well-defined bounds to her friendship, as Rivers discovered one evening as they were walking over the plain toward her home.
On every side the vivid green stretched away, smooth as the rounded flesh of a woman, velvet in texture, glorified by the saffron and orange of the sunset sky.
At the cabin they met Carrie, for whom Estelle was both sister and mother. The little shanty slanted on the side of a swell like a little boat sliding up a monstrous mid-ocean wave. Around it lay a little garden inhabited by a colony of chicken-coops--"All my own making," Estelle said. "Oh, of course, sister held the nails and bossed, but I did it. I like it, too. It's more fun than working red poppies on tidies--that's about all they'll let you do back East."
"It doesn't matter much what you do out here," said Rivers, meaningly.
"Oh yes, it does. Some things are wrong anywhere; but there are other things which people think are wrong that are only unusual," she answered, and he knew she knew what he meant.
The talk moved on to lighter themes, and then died away as the three sat in the doorway and saw the light fade out of the sky.
Carrie's thin, eager face shone with angelic light. She seemed to hold her breath as flame after flame of the marvellous light was withdrawn.
"Oh, the sky is so big out here," she whispered. Estelle locked hands with her and sat in silence. Rivers, awkward and constrained, respected their emotion. At last he rose.
"I'm going over to Burke's a little while, so I'll have to be moving."
"Mrs. Burke is very strange," said Estelle; "I can't seem to get on with her. She seems very lonely and restless. Her husband is away a great deal, but I can't get her to talk, when I call, and she never returns my call."
"She never seemed that way to me," Rivers said, having nothing better in mind at the moment.
"I think she's homesick. I wish I knew how to help her, but I don't."
Rivers walked away with two thoughts in his mind. One was the girl's sentence about things that were wrong and things which people thought were wrong, and the other was the question about Blanche--was she homesick? That puzzled him. Had he only seen her in her joyous moods? It was not pleasant to think of her growing sad--perhaps on his account.
Burke sat on a bench outside the door, smoking silently in the dusk. Blanche was stirring about inside.
"Hello, Rivers!" Burke called. "Take a seat." He pointed at a vinegar-keg.
Blanche hurried to meet her visitor, a beautiful smile on her face. "Come inside," she said. "I've got some work to do, and I want to hear you men talk." They obediently complied, and she lighted a lamp. "I like to see you when you talk," she added, flashing a smile at Rivers.
He saw the change in her for the first time. She certainly was paler, her face less boyish, and a deeper shadow hovered about her eyes.
"I came over to see if you wouldn't come down and help us get up a jollification at the store on the Fourth," he said.
"Why, of course. What shall I do?"
"Oh, stir up a cake--and make some ice-cream. Can you make ice-cream?"
"You bet I can--with ice. Bring on your ice."
"Ice is easy to get. Cook is what bothered me."
"That ought to be easy," said Burke. "Marry one."
"That's what I'm telling Bailey."
"Why don't you set the example. 'Stelle Clayton--now."
Rivers laughed, but his eyes, directed above Burke's head, met the unsmiling gaze of Blanche and sobered.
"Miss Clayton and I don't seem to get along first-rate," he said, and her face lighted again.
"Well, there are lots of others 'round here--lonesome girls. Blanche, can't you help Jim find a woman?"
Blanche did not answer lightly. She turned to her work. "I guess he can find one if he tries hard."
She was alluring as she kneaded the bread at the table. The flex of her waist and the swing of her skirts affected Rivers powerfully. He watched her in silence. Once she looked around, and the penetrative glance of his eyes filled her face with a rush of blood, and her eyes misted.