After he went away Berrie turned to her mother with a look in which humor
and awe were blent. "Am I dreaming, mother, or am I actually sitting here
in the city? My head is dizzy with it all." Then, without waiting for an
answer, she fervently added: "Isn't he fine! I'm the tenderfoot now. I
hope his father won't despise me."
With justifiable pride in her child, the mother replied: "He can't help
liking you, honey. You look exactly like your grandmother at this moment.
Meet Mr. Norcross in her spirit."
"I'll try; but I feel like a woodchuck out of his hole."
Mrs. McFarlane continued: "I'm glad we were forced out of the valley. You
might have been shut in there all your life as I have been with your
father."
"You don't blame father, do you?"
"Not entirely. And yet he always was rather easy-going, and you know how
untidy the ranch is. He's always been kindness and sympathy itself; but
his lack of order is a cross. Perhaps now he will resign, rent the ranch,
and move over here. I should like to live in the city for a while, and
I'd like to travel a little."
"Wouldn't it be fine if you could! You could live at this hotel if you
wanted to. Yes, you're right. You need a rest from the ranch and
dish-washing."
Wayland returned with an increase of tension in his face.
"He's here! I've sent word saying, 'I am lunching in the café with
ladies.' I think he'll come round. But don't be afraid of him. He's a
good deal rougher on the outside than he is at heart. Of course, he's a
bluff old business man, and not at all pretty, and he'll transfix you
with a kind of estimating glare as if you were a tree; but he's actually
very easy to manage if you know how to handle him. Now, I'm not going to
try to explain everything to him at the beginning. I'm going to introduce
him to you in a casual kind of way and give him time to take to you both.
He forms his likes and dislikes very quickly."
"What if he don't like us?" inquired Berrie, with troubled brow.
"He can't help it." His tone was so positive that her eyes misted with
happiness. "But here comes our food. I hope you aren't too nervous to
eat. Here is where I shine as provider. This is the kind of camp fare I
can recommend."
Berrie's healthy appetite rose above her apprehension, and she ate with
the keen enjoyment of a child, and her mother said, "It surely is a treat
to get a chance at somebody else's cooking."
"Don't you slander your home fare," warned Wayland. "It's as good as
this, only different."
He sat where he could watch the door, and despite his jocund pose his
eyes expressed growing impatience and some anxiety. They were all well
into their dessert before he called out: "Here he is!"
Mrs. McFarlane could not see the new-comer from where she sat, but Berrie
rose in great excitement as a heavy-set, full-faced man with short, gray
mustache and high, smooth brow entered the room. He did not smile as he
greeted his son, and his penetrating glance questioned even before he
spoke. He seemed to silently ask: "Well, what's all this? How do you
happen to be here? Who are these women?"
Wayland said: "Mrs. McFarlane, this is my father. Father, this is Miss
Berea McFarlane, of Bear Tooth Springs."
The elder Norcross shook hands with Mrs. McFarlane politely, coldly; but
he betrayed surprise as Berea took his fingers in her grip. At his son's
solicitation he accepted a seat opposite Berea, but refused dessert.
Wayland explained: "Mrs. McFarlane and her daughter quite saved my life
over in the valley. Their ranch is the best health resort in Colorado."
"Your complexion indicates that," his father responded, dryly. "You look
something the way a man of your age ought to look. I needn't ask how
you're feeling."
"You needn't, but you may. I'm feeling like a new fiddle--barring a
bruise at the back of my head, which makes a 'hard hat' a burden. I may
as well tell you first off that Mrs. McFarlane is the wife of the Forest
Supervisor at Bear Tooth, and Miss Berea is the able assistant of her
father. We are all rank conservationists."
Norcross, Senior, examined Berrie precisely as if his eyes were a couple
of X-ray tubes, and as she flushed under his slow scrutiny he said: "I
was not expecting to find the Forest Service in such hands."
Wayland laughed.
"I hope you didn't mash his fingers, Berrie."
She smiled guiltily. "I'm afraid I did. I hope I didn't hurt
you--sometimes I forget."
Norcross, Senior, was waking up. "You have a most extraordinary grip.
What did it? Piano practice?"