Meeker's face lightened. "I reckon you're Mr. Norcross? I'm glad to see
ye. Light off and make yourself to home. Turn your horses into the
corral, the boys will feed 'em."
"Am I in America?" Norcross asked himself, as he followed the slouchy old
rancher into the unkempt yard. "This certainly is a long way from New
Haven."
Without ceremony Meeker led his guests directly into the dining-room, a
long and rather narrow room, wherein a woman and six or seven roughly
dressed young men were sitting at a rudely appointed table.
"Earth and seas!" exclaimed Mrs. Meeker. "Here's Berrie, and I'll bet
that's Sutler's friend, our boarder."
"That's what, mother," admitted her husband. "Berrie brought him up."
"You'd ought 'o gone for him yourself, you big lump," she retorted.
Mrs. Meeker, who was as big as her husband, greeted Norcross warmly, and
made a place for him beside her own chair.
"Highst along there, boys, and give the company a chance," she commanded,
sharply. "Our dinner's turrible late to-day."
The boys--they were in reality full-grown cubs of eighteen or twenty--did
as they were bid with much noise, chaffing Berrie with blunt humor. The
table was covered with a red oil-cloth, and set with heavy blue-and-white
china. The forks were two-tined, steel-pronged, and not very polished,
and the food was of the simplest sort; but the girl seemed at home
there--as she did everywhere--and was soon deep in a discussion of the
price of beef, and whether it was advisable to ship now or wait a month.
Meeker read Sutler's letter, which Norcross had handed him, and, after
deliberation, remarked: "All right, we'll do the best we can for you, Mr.
Norcross; but we haven't any fancy accommodations."
"He don't expect any," replied Berrie. "What he needs is a little
roughing it."
"There's plinty of that to be had," said one of the herders, who sat
below the salt. "'is the soft life I'm nadin'."
"Pat's strong on soft jobs," said another; and Berea joined the laugh
which followed this pointless joke. She appeared to be one of them, and
it troubled Norcross a little. She had so little the sex feeling and
demanded so few of the rights and privileges of a girl. The men all
admired her, that was evident, almost too evident, and one or two of the
older men felt the charm of her young womanhood too deeply even to meet
her eyes; but of this Norcross was happily ignorant. Already in these two
days he had acquired a distinct sense of proprietorship in her, a feeling
which made him jealous of her good name.
Meeker, it turned out, was an Englishman by way of Canada, and this was
his second American wife. His first had been a sister to Mrs. McFarlane.
He was a man of much reading--of the periodical sort--and the big
sitting-room was littered with magazines both English and American, and
his talk abounded in radical and rather foolish utterances. Norcross
considered it the most disorderly home he had ever seen, and yet it was
not without a certain dignity. The rooms were large and amply provided
with furniture of a very mixed and gaudy sort, and the table was spread
with abundance.
One of the lads, Frank Meeker, a dark, intense youth of about twenty, was
Berea's full cousin. The others were merely hired hands, but they all
eyed the new-comer with disfavor. The fact that Berrie had brought him
and that she seemed interested in him added to the effect of the smart
riding-suit which he wore. "I'd like to roll him in the creek," muttered
one of them to his neighbor.
This dislike Berrie perceived--in some degree--and to Frank she privately
said: "Now you fellows have got to treat Mr. Norcross right. He's been
very sick."
Frank maliciously grinned. "Oh, we'll treat him _right_. We won't do a
thing to him!"
"Now, Frank," she warned, "if you try any of your tricks on him you'll
hear from me."
"Why all this worry on your part?" he asked, keenly. "How long since you
found him?"
"We rode up on the stage day before yesterday, and he seemed so kind o'
blue and lonesome I couldn't help trying to chirk him up."
"How will Cliff take all this chirking business?"
"Cliff ain't my guardian--yet," she laughingly responded. "Mr. Norcross
is a college man, and not used to our ways--"
"_Mister_ Norcross--what's his front name?"
"Wayland."
He snorted. "Wayland! If he gets past us without being called 'pasty'
he's in luck. He's a 'lunger' if there ever was one."
The girl was shrewd enough to see that the more she sought to soften the
wind to her Eastern tenderfoot the more surely he was to be shorn, so she
gave over her effort in that direction, and turned to the old folks. To
Mrs. Meeker she privately said: "Mr. Norcross ain't used to rough ways,
and he's not very rugged, you ought 'o kind o' favor him for a while."
The girl herself did not understand the vital and almost painful interest
which this young man had roused in her. He was both child and poet to
her, and as she watched him trying to make friends with the men, her
indignation rose against their clownish offishness. She understood fully
that his neat speech, his Eastern accent, together with his tailor-cut
clothing and the delicacy of his table manners, would surely mark him for
slaughter among the cow-hands, and the wish to shield him made her face
graver than anybody had ever seen it.
"I don't feel right in leaving you here," she said, at last; "but I must
be ridin'." And while Meeker ordered her horse brought out, she walked to
the gate with Norcross at her side.
"I'm tremendously obliged to you," he said, and his voice was vibrant.
"You have been most kind. How can I repay you?"
"Oh, that's all right," she replied, in true Western fashion. "I wanted
to see the folks up here, anyhow. This is no jaunt at all for me." And,
looking at her powerful figure, and feeling the trap-like grip of her
cinch hand, he knew she spoke the truth.
Frank had saddled his own horse, and was planning to ride over the hill
with her; but to this she objected. "I'm going to leave Pete here for Mr.
Norcross to ride," she said, "and there's no need of your going."
Frank's face soured, and with instant perception of the effect her
refusal might have on the fortunes of the stranger, she reconsidered.
"Oh, come along! I reckon you want to get shut of some mean job."
And so she rode away, leaving her ward to adjust himself to his new and
strange surroundings as best he could, and with her going the whole
valley darkened for the convalescent.