They met Livingston and his charge just as they reached the dimly marked
trail that led up a gulch toward Sydney's camp. At the invitation
extended for dinner the sheep-man drove up the coulee and followed the
riders.
William, the cook, greeted his guests with a generous smile, then
proceeded to do a great amount of hustling about preparing for the meal,
which he promised would be an excellent one. Being a round-up cook of
much experience, he soon set before them such an assortment of edibles
as would have dumfounded the uninitiated.
The afternoon passed off pleasantly. Hope was unusually vivacious, and
Sydney full of amusing small talk, principally concerning his sundry
adventures and impressions during his brief absence from camp.
They all felt the grief of the German girl, and each showed his sympathy
in a different manner. Sydney talked, often in an aimless, senseless
way, but obviously to divert the unhappy girl. Hope filled each pause,
concluded every description with rich drollery and mimicry, while
Livingston's quiet attentiveness betokened the deepest compassion. Even
William gave her many smiles and made numerous witty remarks, which were
wholly lost upon her.
"You're in a very bad crowd of people, Miss Louisa," said Sydney. "But
after awhile you'll be so much like us that you won't notice how bad we
are!"
"Shame on you, Sydney!" exclaimed Hope. "Louisa never could be bad!"
Then to the girl: "The truth is, _he's_ the only bad one in the whole
outfit, so don't let him make you think that the rest of us are bad,
too!"
"You are all _so_ goot," said Louisa, in great earnestness.
"Now listen to that!" cried Sydney. "That's the first time anybody ever
accused _me_ of being good! I'll get a gold medal and hang it about
your neck, Miss Louisa, and I'll be your faithful servant from now on."
"And you'll bring her fresh flowers every day, and maybe you could
borrow Mr. Livingston's buggy since you haven't one of your own. But
don't soar too high, Sydney, she doesn't know you yet!" returned his
cousin.
"But _you_ like him," said Louisa, "and daat iss--vat you calls
'em--_recommend_ enough!"
They were all surprised by this first flash of the real Louisa, the
Louisa of sunshine and mirth, whom Sorrow had so soon branded.
It was the first time Sydney had heard her utter anything but the
briefest monosyllables. He looked at her, astonished. For an instant
silence reigned, then Hope, with sudden abandonment, threw her arms
about her, exclaiming:
"Oh, you're the dearest thing I ever saw! Isn't she, Syd?" And then, as
if ashamed of her impulsiveness, she jumped up and laughingly left the
tent. A few moments later she put her head inside, remarking: "The
trout haven't begun to feed yet. I'd like to know how we are going to
put in the time waiting for them! It's too hot for anything in there,
and it won't be a bit of use to try to fish for an hour, at least. All
of you come outside."
"Yes," said Carter, rising lazily to his feet. "I've discovered a small
Eden down there under the willows, along the creek. All green and mossy
and pepperminty, but the snake's never showed up yet. Come on, we'll all
go down there."
He led the way along the steep bank of the small creek and down its
opposite side until a parting in the willow brush revealed one of
Nature's hidden glories, a small glen, shady and beautiful. From its
very center sprang a tiny spring, forming a clear, glassy pool of water
which narrowed into a tiny trickling rill that went creeping through the
grass-carpeted arbor to the larger stream beyond.
It was beautifully inviting, and Hope sank down upon a mossy cushion
with an exclamation of delight.
"Now, how am I for an entertainer?" asked Sydney gayly. Hope turned her
dark eyes upon him, then about the little arbor.
"Wait," she said softly, "don't talk for a minute--don't even breathe.
This is glorious!" Then after a brief pause, continued: "There, the
spell's passed! This place is no longer enchanting, but lovely and cool,
just the same, and is a whole lot better than that roasting tent up
there. What became of the twins? Probably they are more attracted by
William's mode of entertainment than yours, Syd!" She turned to
Livingston and smiled. "William has two regular customers already, you
know. I am afraid to think what will happen if he camps here all
summer."
"I am inclined to add my name to the list if he entertains such charming
ones every day," replied the sheep-man.
"I meant the _boys_," said Hope in all seriousness.
Sydney laughed outright.
"How do you know but what he meant the boys, too?" he asked. She looked
at him with an assumption of surprise. "A girl never makes such a
mistake as that," she said. "It was a very pretty compliment."
"Worthy of O'Hara," he put in.
"Worthy of Mr. Livingston," she declared. "O'Hara's compliments are not
so delicate. They are beautifully worded, but unconvincing."
"I believe she's actually giving you credit for extreme honesty!"
exclaimed Carter.
"I sincerely trust so," replied his friend heartily. "It would be a most
pleasing compliment."
"Well, I should say it would be the biggest one _she_ ever paid anyone!
You're the first one Hope ever credited with honesty. You can sit for an
hour and tell her a great long story and she'll never give you the
satisfaction of knowing for sure whether she believes you or not. The
chances are she don't. She'll take your assertions, weigh every word,
and then draw her own conclusions."
"You only know from your own experience," demurred Hope. "All people
haven't your habit of departing from the truth, you know." Then to
Livingston: "Really, he can tell a terrible whopper with the straightest
face imaginable! He only proves to you how well I know him. Last summer
he told a girl a ridiculous story about snakes. It was her first visit
at the ranch, and for several days I thought something was the matter
with her brain. Every time she heard a grasshopper buzz anywhere near
she would give a shriek and turn deathly pale. She finally told me that
she feared rattlesnakes because Sydney had told her that that particular
buzz was the snake's death rattle and that something or somebody was
doomed for sure, that if the snake couldn't get the human victim it had
set its eyes upon, it crept into a prairie-dog hole and got one of them.
Of course that is only a sample of his very foolish yarns, which no one
but an ignorant person would think of believing."
"I remember," laughed Sydney. "That was that fair Lily Cresmond. She got
up and had breakfast with me at six o'clock this morning. Poor girl!
I'm afraid I've put my foot in it this time!"
"For goodness' sake, did she propose to you?" asked Hope, aghast.
"Not that I'm aware of!" answered Sydney. "No, it's worse than that. She
asked me to tell her really and truly why _you_ weren't at home this
summer. She crossed her heart, hoped to die she'd never breathe a word
of it to a living, human creature, so I told her that it pained me to
tell the sad story, but last season Freddie Rosehill had shown you such
evident admiration that your father had become thoroughly alarmed and
thought it best to keep you out of his way for the present. But I
suggested that you might face paternal wrath and come back just for one
look at the dear little boy."
"Sydney, you never did!" gasped Hope. "_How could you?_"
"Freddie came trotting out for his morning constitutional just as I was
riding away," he continued, "and he waved his cane in the air and
actually _ran_ down to the corral to say good-by. I really believe he
liked me for once because I was leaving, and he very gingerly asked
about you, and naturally was visibly relieved when I assured him that
you would probably not be home while he was there. Talk about your
joshers!" he said to Livingston. "Hope had the little Englishman so he
didn't know his soul was his own! She'd take him out on the prairie and
lose him, have him pop away for an hour at a stuffed chicken tied to the
top of a tree, shoot bullets through his hat by mistake, and about a
million other things too blood-curdling to mention. He didn't want to
refuse my aunt's invitation to join the party at the ranch every summer,
but his days and nights were spent in mortal terror of this dignified
daughter of the house. And I must say there wasn't much love lost
between them."
"A brainless little fop!" commented Hope.
"Well, it seems he had sense enough to catch that oldest Cresmond girl,
Lily, whose ears I filled with the pathetic story; but I didn't know it
then, that's the fun of it! He held out his fat little hand to me when
I started out this morning and said: 'I want your congratulations. Lily
has promised to be my Lady.' 'You don't say so,' I said. 'Lord, but what
a haul you've made, Rosehill!' 'Yes,' said he, 'she's a beauty!' 'And a
million or so from her papa'll set you up in housekeeping in great shape
over in Old England. I certainly congratulate you!' said I. He didn't
seem to have anything more to say, so I rode off, and do you know I
never once thought of what I'd told that girl about him liking you until
I was halfway here."
"Oh, Syd, what have you done!" cried Hope. "You ought to go right back
to the ranch and fix it up for them. It might be real serious!"
"Don't worry; they'll fix it up between them, just give 'em time,"
laughed Sydney. "But then I shouldn't like to be the cause of breaking
up such a match. I sure wouldn't!"
"I should say not! It would be terrible!" agreed Hope.
"No, I wouldn't like it on my conscience," continued Sydney, "to break
up such a good match by my thoughtless words. It would be too bad to
spoil two families!"
"I quite agree with you, excepting the lady, whom I do not know,"
remarked Livingston. "But I have met Rosehill. He is, in my estimation,
a worthless specimen of English aristocracy."
"Oh, they're mostly all alike, a mighty poor outfit all through, from
the ones I've known! But I guess they'll manage to fix it up among
themselves," laughed Hope.
At this remark Livingston looked oddly at the girl, then the brush
crackled near them, followed by the appearance of one of the twins, who,
smiling victoriously, held up for inspection a small string of trout.
"And here we've been wasting our time when we might have been fishing
instead!" exclaimed Hope, springing up from her mossy couch and minutely
examining the string of fish.
"You'll find fishing tackle, all you want, up at camp. William'll show
you," remarked Sydney. "For my part I shall stay here and gather
strawberry leaves for Miss Louisa to make into wreaths. Isn't this one a
daisy? It's too warm to fish, anyway," he concluded.
"You shall not decide for her, Syd," declared Hope. "Which would you
rather do, Louisa?"
The German girl shook her head, smiling a little. "It is very warm," she
said.
"Then you shall stay with Sydney," decided Hope. "But I am only going to
fish a little while, anyway, because I've got something else I want to
do." She looked up at Livingston, who had come near her, and laughed.
"Yes, you may go with me if you will show me how to cast a fly. Sydney
says you are an expert fisherman, but I don't know the first thing about
it. We will walk up the creek and fish down, because the boys are
fishing down here." She called to the boy, who was walking toward the
stream: "I'll be ready to go home in about an hour, wait for me!" He
nodded in reply. "Come on," she said to Livingston.
They had fished in silence some minutes, far up the stream at an open
point where several other smaller streams joined this, forming a broad
group of tiny, gravelly islands.
"I do think," said the girl finally, "that this is great sport, though I
cannot haul them out like you do. Now it must be luck--nothing more, for
we both have exactly the same kind of flies."
"You leave your fly too long in the water," said the man. "You should
cast more--like this."
"But I can't for the life of me get the hang of it," she exclaimed,
making a desperate attempt.
"Not like that," said Livingston. "Look, this is the way. There, you've
caught yourself!"
"Yes, how foolish," laughed the girl. "It's in there to stay, too!"
"Wait, I will assist you," he said, leaping across the stream which
separated them, and coming to her side.
"I think I can get it out all right," she said, throwing down her pole,
and using on the entangled hook more force than discretion. She laughed
in a half-vexed manner at her attempts, while Livingston stood near
watching, his eyes earnest, intent, his face illumed by a soft, boyish
smile of quiet enjoyment.
"If I had another hook I'd cut this off and leave it in there," she
said, "but the fishing is too fine to leave now. No, wait a minute,"
motioning him back with the disengaged hand while she tugged vigorously
at the hook with the other. "I can do it. If only the material in this
waist wasn't so strong, I might tear it out. How perfectly idiotic of me
to do such a thing, anyway!" Her cheeks were aflame with the exertion.
"You see," she continued, still twisting her neck and looking down
sideways at the shoulder of her gown where the hook was imbedded, "I
don't want to break it because we'd have to go way back to the camp and
start in over, and then it would be too late in the day. I don't see
what possessed that fish to get away with my other hook! But this goods
simply won't tear!"
"There's no other way," declared Livingston, with conviction. "You will
have to let me help you. I'll cut it out. See," he scrutinized the hook
very closely, while Hope threw down her arms in despair, "it's only held
by a few threads. If you don't mind doing a little mending, I will
perform the operation in a moment to your entire satisfaction."
"Well, hurry, please, because we are certainly wasting good time and
lots of fish."
"If all time were but wasted like this," he exclaimed softly, prolonging
the task.
She knew that he was taking undue advantage of the situation and that
she was strangely glad of it, recklessly glad, in her own fashion. She
had never looked at him so closely before. In this position he could not
see her. She noticed his broad, white forehead, and felt a strong desire
to touch the hair that dropped over it, then admonished herself for
feeling glad at his slowness.
From the hillside above them a man on a piebald horse watched the scene
interestedly. Without warning the girl's eyes lifted suddenly from the
soft, brown hair so near, and met those of the rider above.
Livingston's head was bent close to her own, so that he did not see the
leering, grinning face that peered down at them, but Hope caught the
look direct, and all, and more, than it seemed to imply. Her eyes
glittered with anger. Like a flash her hand sought her blouse and for an
instant the bright sunlight gleamed upon a small weapon. As quickly the
man wheeled his horse and disappeared behind the hill. With a deep flush
the girl hid the little revolver as Livingston, ignorant of the scene,
triumphantly held up for inspection the rescued fishhook.
"Making love, by the holy smoke," chuckled Shorty Smith to himself,
spurring up his piebald horse and heading off a stray calf. "So that's
what she does 'longside o' teachin' kids!"