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But all of a sudden she became aware that her regard had been observed, and, with a little smile twinkling in the depths of her hazel eyes, she picked up her horse's forefoot again, and once more probed with her gauntleted finger for the cause of the desperate lameness with which he had been suddenly attacked.
She heard the buggy come up. She was aware that the team had swung out to avoid collision. Then a cheery voice greeted her ears with its pleasant and welcome inquiry —
"You seem to be in a fix. Can I help any?"
Before the girl looked round she was aware that the teamster had alighted. Then when she finally released her hold of the injured hoof, and stood up, she found herself confronted by Gordon's smiling blue eyes, as he stood bare-headed before her.
Somehow or other a smiling response was unavoidable.
"That's real kind of you," she said, "but I don't guess you can. You see, poor Sunset's dead lame with a flint in his frog, and – and I just can't get the fool thing out."
Gordon endeavored to look serious. But the trouble was incomparable in his mind with the delightful charm of this girl, in her divided riding-suit. However, his effort to conceal his admiration was not without some success.
"I don't guess we can stand for any old thing like an impertinent flint," he said impulsively. "Sunset must be relieved. Sunset must be put out of pain. I'm not just a veterinary surgeon, but I'm a specialist on the particular flint which happens to annoy you. Just grab these lines while I have a look."
The frank unconventionality of the man was wholly pleasing, and the girl found herself obeying him without question.
"It's the nearside," she explained.
Then she remained silent, watching the assured manner in which the stranger set about his work. He picked up the hoof and examined it closely. Then he drew out a folding button-hook from a trouser pocket. Then, for a few moments, she watched his deft manipulation of it.
Presently he stood up holding a long, thin, sharp splinter of flint between finger and thumb.
"Say," he remarked, as he returned the buttonhook to his pocket, while his eyes shone merrily, "I believe if some bright geologist were to set out chasing these flints to their lair, I've a notion he'd pull up in – in – well, aspirate a certain measure in cloth and I'd guess you get the answer right away. It's paved with 'em. That's my secret belief. I could write a treatise on 'em. I've discovered every breed and every species. I tell you if you want to study these rocks right, you need to run an automobile, and find yourself in a hurry, having forgotten to carry spare tires. Ugh!" He flung the stone away from him and turned again to the horse.
Still watching him, the girl saw him deliberately tear off a piece of his handkerchief, and, with the point of his pocket-knife, stuff it into the jagged gash in poor Sunset's frog.
"That'll keep out some of Snake's Fall," he observed, returning the rest of his handkerchief to his pocket. "We'll take it out when we get him home." Then he deliberately turned to his team and tied Sunset alongside. After that, in the most practical manner, he moved the wheels of the buggy apart. "Jump right in. Guess you know the way, so you can show it me. You see, I'm a stranger. Say, it's an awful thing to be a stranger. Life's rotten being a stranger."
The girl was gazing at him with wide, wondering eyes that were half inclined to resentment. She was not accustomed to being ordered about in this cavalier fashion. She had no intention of being incontinently swept off her feet.
"Thanks," she said, with an assumption of hauteur. "If you'll untie Sunset I'll ride home."
"Ride home? Say, you're joking. Why, you can't ride Sunset with that gash in his frog. Say, you couldn't be so cruel. Think of the poor fellow silently suffering. Think of the mute anguish he would endure at each step. It – it would be a crime, an outrage, a – a – " He broke off, his eyes twinkling merrily.
The girl wanted to be annoyed. She told herself she was annoyed, but she nevertheless began to laugh, and Gordon knew he was to have his way.
"I really couldn't think of accepting your – Besides, you weren't going to Buffalo Point. You know you weren't."
"Do I?" Gordon's eyes were blankly inquiring. "Now how on earth do I know where I was going? Say, I guess it's true I had in my mind a vision of the glinting summer sun, tinting the coal heaps with its wonderful, golden, ripening rays – though I guess it would be some work ripening stove coal – but as to my ever getting there – well, that just depended on the trail I happened to take. As I said, I'm a stranger. And I may as well admit right here that I've a hobby getting mussed up with wrong trails."
The girl's laughter dispelled her last effort at dignity.
"I knew you were a stranger. You see, I get to know everybody here – by sight."
Gordon made a gesture of annoyance.
"There," he exclaimed in self-disgust, "I ought to have thought of that before. How on earth could I expect you to ride in a stranger's buggy, with said stranger on the business end of the lines? Then the hills are so near. Why, you might be spirited off goodness knows where, and your loving relatives never, never hear of you no more, and – Say, we can easily fix that though. My name's – Van Henslaer. Gordon Van Henslaer from New York. Now if you tell me – what's the matter?"
A merry peal of laughter had greeted his announcement, and Gordon looked on in pretended amazement, waiting for her mirth to subside.
"Oh dear, oh dear," the girl cried at last. "I might have known. Say, of course I ought to have known. You came here yesterday on the train – by mistake. You – "
"That's so. I'd booked through to Seattle, but – some interfering pack of fools guessed I'd made a – mistake,"
The girl nodded. Her pretty eyes were still dancing with merriment.
"Father came by the same train, and told me of someone who got mixed up in – in a fight, and they threw – "
"Don't say another word," Gordon cried hurriedly. "I'm – I'm the man. And your father is – ?"
"Mallinsbee – Silas Mallinsbee!"
"Then you are Hazel Mallinsbee."
"How do you know my first name?"
"Why, I saw you in town, and the livery man told me you were 'Miss Hazel.' Say, this is bully. Now we aren't strangers, and you can ride in my buggy without any question. Jump right in, and I'll drive you – where is it?"
Hazel Mallinsbee obeyed without further demur. She sprang into the vehicle, and Gordon promptly followed. The next moment they were moving on at a steady, sober pace.
"It's Buffalo Point," the girl directed. "It's only four miles. Then you can go on and enjoy your beautiful pathetic picture of the coal workings. But you won't have much time if we travel at this gait," she added slyly.
Gordon shook his head.
"It's Sunset," he said. "We must consider his poor foot."
There was laughter in Hazel's eyes as she sighed.
"Poor Sunset. Perhaps – you're right."
"Without a doubt," Gordon laughed. "He might get blood poisoning, or cancer, or dyspepsia, or something if we bustled him."
Hazel pointed a branching trail to the north.
"That's the trail," she said. "Father's at home. He'll be real glad to see you. Say, you know father ought to know better – at his age. He – he just loves a scrap. He was telling me about you, and saying how you 'hammered' – that's the word he used – the 'sharp.' He was most upset that the train crew spoiled the finish. You know father's a great scallywag. I don't believe he thinks he's a day over twenty. It's – it's dreadful – with a grown-up daughter. He's – just a great big boy for all his gray hair. You should just see him out on the range. He's got all the youngsters left standing. It must be grand to grow old like he does."
Gordon listened to the girl's rich tones, and the enthusiasm lying behind her words, and somehow the whole situation seemed unreal. Here he was driving one of the most perfectly delightful girls he had ever met to her home, within twenty-four hours of his absurd arrival in a still more absurd town. Nor was she any mere country girl. Her whole style spoke of an education obtained at one of the great schools in the East. Her costume might have been tailored on Fifth Avenue, New York. Yet here she was living the life of the wonderful sunlit prairie, the daughter of an obscure rancher in the foothills of the Rockies.
"Say, your father is just a bully feller," he agreed quickly. "He didn't know me from – a grasshopper, but he did me all sorts of a good service. It don't matter what it was. But it was one of those things which between men count a whole heap."
The girl's enthusiasm waxed.
"Father's just as good as – as he's clever. But," she added tenderly, "he's a great scallywag. Oh dear, he'll never grow up." A few minutes later she pointed quickly ahead with one gauntleted hand.
"That's Buffalo Point," she said. "There where that house is. That's our house, and beyond it, half a mile, you can see the telegraph poles of the railroad track."
Gordon gazed ahead. They still had a good mile to go. The lonely house fixed his attention.
"Say, isn't there a village?" he inquired. "Buffalo Point?"
The girl shook her head.
"No. Just that little frame house of ours. Father had it built as – a sort of office. You see, we're both working hard on his land scheme. You see, it's – it's our hobby, the same as losing trails is yours."
Gordon laughed.
"That's plumb spoiled my day. I'd forgotten the land business. Now it's all come over me like a chill, like the drip of an ice wagon down the back of my neck. I s'pose there'll always be land around, and we've always got to have coal. It seems a pity, doesn't it. Say, there hasn't been a soul I've met in twenty-four hours, but they've been crazy on – on town sites. They're most ridiculous things, town sites. Four pegs and four imaginary lines, a deal of grass with a substrata of crawly things. And for that men would scrap, and cheat, and rob, and – and graft. It's – a wonder."
Hazel Mallinsbee checked her inclination to laugh again. Her eyes were gazing ahead at the little frame house, and they grew wistfully serious.
"It isn't the land," she said simply. "The scrap, and cheat, and rob, and graft, are right. But it's the fight for fortune. Fortune?" she smiled. "Fortune means everything to a modern man. To some women, too, but not quite in the way it does to a man. You see, in olden days competition took a different form. I don't know if, in spite of what folks say about the savagery of old times, they weren't more honest and wholesome than they are now. However, nature's got to compete for something. Human nature's got to beat someone. Life is just one incessant rivalry. Well, in old times it took the form of bloodshed and war, when men counted with pride the tally of their victories. Now we point with pride to our civilization, and gaze back in pity upon our benighted forefathers. Instead of bloodshed, killing, fighting, massacring and all the old bad habits of those who came before us, we point our civilization by lying, cheating, robbing and grafting."
Gordon smiled.
"Put that way it sounds as though the old folks were first-class saints compared with us. There's a deal of honesty when two fellers get right up on their hind legs and start in to mush each other's faces to a pulp. But it isn't just the same when you creep up while the other feller isn't wise and push the muzzle of a gun into his middle and riddle his stomach till it's like a piece of gruyère cheese."
Hazel shook her head. Her eyes were still smiling, but Gordon detected something of the serious thought behind them. He vainly endeavored to sober his mood in sympathy.
"Guess it's the refinement of competition due to the claims of our much proclaimed culture and civilization. I think civilization is a – a dreadful mockery. To call it a whitewash would be a libel on a perfectly innocent, wholesome, sanitary process. That's how I always feel when I stop to think. But – but," her eyes began to dance with a joyous enthusiasm, "I don't often think – not that way. Say, I just love the battle, I mean the modern battle for fortune. It's – it's almost the champagne of life. I know only one thing to beat it."
Gordon had forgotten the team he was driving, and let them amble leisurely on towards the house, now so rapidly approaching.
"What's – the real champagne?" he inquired.
The girl turned and gazed at him with wide eyes.
"Why," she cried. "Life – just life itself. What else? Say, think of the moment your eyes open to the splendid sunlight of day. Think of the moment you realize you are living – living – living, after a long, delicious night's sleep. Think of all the perfect moments awaiting you before night falls, and you seek your bed again. It is just the very essence of perfect joy."
"It's better after breakfast, and you've had time to get around some."
The ardor of the girl's mood received a sudden douche. Just for a moment a gleam of displeasure shadowed her eyes. Then a twinkling smile grew, and the clouds dispersed.
"Isn't that just a man? Where's your enthusiasm? Where's your joy of life? Where's your romance, and – and spirit of hope?"
A great pretense of reproach lay in her rapid questions.
"Oh, they're all somewhere lying around, I guess," returned Gordon simply. "Those things are all right, sure. But – but it's a mighty tough proposition worrying that way on – on an empty stomach. It seems to me that's just one of life's mistakes. There ought to be a law in Congress that a feller isn't allowed to – to think till he's had his morning coffee. The same law might provide for the fellow who fancies himself a sort of canary and starts right in to sing before he's had his bath. I'd have him sent to the electric chair. That sort of fellow never has a voice worth two cents, and he most generally has a repertoire of songs about as bright as Solomon's, and a mighty deal older. Sure, Miss Mallinsbee, I haven't a word to say against life in a general way, but it's about as wayward as a spoilt kid, and needs as much coaxing."
Hazel Mallinsbee watched the play of the man's features while he talked. She knew he meant little or nothing of what he said. The fine, clear eyes, the smiling simplicity and atmosphere of virile youth about him, all denied the sentiments he was giving vent to. She nodded as he finished.
"At first I thought you meant all – that," she said lightly. "But now I know you're just talking for talking's sake." Then, before he could reply, she pointed excitedly at the house, now less than a hundred yards away. "Why, there's father, standing right there on the veranda!" she exclaimed.
Gordon looked ahead. The old man was waving one great hand to his daughter.
CHAPTER VIII
AT BUFFALO POINT
To Gordon's mind Hazel Mallinsbee attached far greater importance to her father's presence on the veranda than the incident warranted. It did not seem to him that there was the least necessity for his being there at all. Truth to tell, the matter appeared to him to be a perfect nuisance. He had rather liked Silas Mallinsbee when he had met him under somewhat distressing circumstances in the town. Now he felt a positive dislike for him. His strong, keen, benevolent face made no appeal to his sympathies now whatsoever.
Besides, it did not seem right that any man who claimed parentage of such a delightful daughter as the girl at his side should slouch about in a pair of old trousers tucked into top-boots and secured about his waist by a narrow strap. And it seemed positively indecent that he should display no other upper garment than a cotton shirt of such a doubtful hue that it was impossible to be sure of its sanitary condition.
However, he allowed none of these feelings betrayal, and replied appropriately to Hazel's excited announcement. He was glad, later, he had exercised such control, for their arrival at the house was the immediate precursor of an invitation to share their midday meal, which had already been placed on the table by the silent, inscrutable Hip-Lee, the Chinese cook and general servitor in this temporary abode.
The horses had been housed and fed in the temporary stable at the back of the house, and a committee of three had sat upon Sunset's injury and prescribed for and treated it. Now they were indoors, ready for the homely meal set out for them.
Hip-Lee moved softly about setting an additional place at the table for the visitor. Silas Mallinsbee was lounging in the doorway, looking out across the veranda. Hazel was superintending Hip-Lee's efforts. Gordon was endeavoring to solve the problem of the rapid and unexpected happenings which had befallen him since his arrival, and at the same time carry on a conversation with the rumbling-voiced originator of Snake's Fall boom.
"At one time I guessed I'd bumped right into the hands of the Philistines," he said. "That's when I was – er arriving. Since then a Samaritan got busy my way and dumps me right down in the heart of the Promised Land, which just now seems to be flowing with milk and honey. I set out to view the dull black mountains of industry, and instead I arrive at the sparkling plains of delightful ease. Mr. Mallinsbee, you certainly have contrived to put me under enormous obligation."
Gordon's eyes were pleasantly following the movements of the girl's graceful figure about the plain but neat parlor. "I suppose all offices in the West are not like this, because – "
Mallinsbee rumbled a pleasant laugh.
"Office?" he said, without turning. "That's jest how Hazel calls it. Guess she's got notions since she finished off her education at Boston. She's got around with a heap of 'em, includin' that suit she's wearin'. Y'see, she's my foreman hoss-breaker, and reckons skirts and things are – played out. Office? Why, it's just a shack. Some time you must get around out an' see the ranch house. It's some place," he added with simple pride.
Hazel went up to her father and pretended to threaten him by the neck.
"See, Daddy, you can just quit telling about my notions to – folks. Anyway" – she turned her back to Gordon – "I appeal to you, Mr. Van Henslaer, isn't an office a place where folks transact big deals and make fortunes?"
"That's how folks reckon when they rent them," said Gordon. "Of course, I've known folks to sleep in 'em. Others use 'em as a sort of club smoking lounge. Then they've been known to serve some men as a shelter from – home. I used to have an office."
Silas Mallinsbee turned from his contemplation of the horizon. He was interested, and his shrewd eyes displayed the fact.
Hazel clapped her hands.
"And what did you use it for?" she demanded quizzically.
"I – oh, I – let's see. Well, mostly an address from which to have word sent to folks I didn't want to see that – I was out. I used to find it useful that way."
Mallinsbee's chuckle amused Gordon, but Hazel assumed an air of judicial severity.
"A spirit not to be encouraged." Then, at the sound of her father's chuckle, "My daddy, you are as bad as he. Now food's ready, so please sit in. We can talk easier around a table than when people are dreaming somewhere in the distance on the horizon, or walking about a room that isn't bigger than the bare size to sit in. Anyway, Mr. Van Henslaer, this office is for business. I won't have it disparaged by my daddy, or – or anyone else. It serves a great purpose so far as we're concerned." Then she added slyly, "You see, we're in the throes of the great excitement of making a huge pile, for the sheer love of making it. Aren't we, Daddy, dear?"
Silas Mallinsbee looked up from the food he was eating with the air of a man who only eats as a matter of sheer necessity.
"Say, Mr. Van Henslaer," he said in his deep tones, "I've been a rancher all my life. Cattle, to me, are just about the only things in the world worth while, 'cept horses. I've never had a care or thought outside 'em, till one day I got busy worrying what was under the ground instead of keeping to the things I understood above the ground. Y'see, the trouble was two things," he went on, smiling tenderly in his daughter's direction. "One was I'd fed the ranch stoves with surface coal that you could find almost anywheres on my land, and the other was the fates just handed me the picture of a daughter who caught the dangerous disease of 'notions' way down east at school in Boston. Since she's come along back to us I've had coal, coal, coal all chasin' through my head, an' playing baseball with every blamed common-sense idea that ever was there before. Wal, to tell things quick, I made a mighty big pile out of that coal just to please her. We didn't need it, but she guessed it was up to me to do this. But that didn't finish it. This gal here couldn't rest at that. She guessed that pile was made and done with. She needs to get busy in another direction. Well, she gets to work, and has all my land on the railroads staked out into a township, and reckons it's a game worth playing. The other was too dead easy. This time she reckons to measure her brains and energy against a railroad! She reckons to show that we can match, and beat, any card they can play. That's the reason of this office."
Hazel laughed and raised an admonishing finger at the smiling face and twinkling eyes of her father.
"What did I tell you, Mr. Van Henslaer?" she cried. "Didn't I say he was just a scallywag? Oh, my great, big daddy, I'm dreadfully, dreadfully ashamed and disappointed in you. I'm going to give you away. I am, surely. There, there, Mr. Van Henslaer, sits the wicked plotter and schemer. Look at him. A big, burly ruffian that ought to know better. Look at him," she went on, pointing a dramatic finger at him. "And he isn't even ashamed. He's laughing. Now listen to me. I'm going to tell you my version. He's a rancher all right, all right. He's been satisfied with that all his life, and prosperity's never turned him down. Then one day he found coal, and did nothing. We just used to talk of it, that was all. Then another day along comes a friend, a very, very old friend and neighbor, whom he's often helped. He came along and got my daddy to sell him a certain patch of grazing – just to help him out, he said. He was a poor man, and my big-hearted daddy sold it him at a rock-bottom price to make it easy for him. Three months later they were mining coal on it – anthracite coal. That fellow made a nice pile out of it. He'd bluffed my daddy, and my daddy takes a bluff from no man. Well, say, he just nearly went crazy being bested that way, and he said to me – these were his words: 'Come on, my gal, you and me are just goin' to show folks what we're made of. If there's money in my land we're going to make all we need before anyone gets home on us. I'm goin' to show 'em I'm a match for the best sharks our country can produce – and that's some goin'.' There sits the money-spinner. There! Look at him; he's self-confessed. I'm just his clerk, or decoy, or – or any old thing he needs to help him in his wicked, wicked schemes!"
Mallinsbee sat chuckling at his daughter's charge, and Gordon, watching him, laughed in chorus.
"I'm kind of sorry, Mr. Mallinsbee, to have had to listen to such a tale," he said at last, with pretended seriousness, "but I guess you're charged, tried, convicted and sentenced. Seeing there's just two of you, it's up to me to give the verdict Guilty!" he declared. "Have you any reason to show why sentence should not be passed upon you? No? Very well, then. I sentence you to make that pile, without fail, in a given time. Say six months. Failing which you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you have assisted in the ruin of an innocent life."
In the midst of the lightness of the moment Gordon had suddenly taken a resolve. It was one of those quick, impulsive resolves which were entirely characteristic of him. There was nothing quite clear in his mind as to any reason in his decision. He was caught in the enthusiasm of his admiration of the fair oval face of his hostess, whose unconventional camaraderie so appealed to his wholesome nature; he was caught by the radiance of her sunny smile, by the laughing depths of her perfect hazel eyes. Nor was the manner of the man, her father, without effect upon his responsive, simple nature.
