THE HOUSE ON THE MESA
Even more bleak than from a distance the house on the mesa appeared as
the riders approached it up the winding road. It stood solitary on its
desert promontory, the bright sky behind it, not a shrub to ease its
lines, not a barn or shed to make a rude background for its amazing
proportions. Native grass grew sparsely on the great table where it
stood; rains had guttered the soil near its door. There was about it the
air of an abandoned place, its long, gaunt porches open to wind and
storm.
As they drew nearer the house the scene opened in a more domestic
appearance. Beyond it in a little cup of the mesa the stable, cattle
sheds, and quarters for the men were located, so hidden in their shelter
that they could not be seen from any point in the valley below. To the
world that never scaled these crumbling heights, Philbrook's mansion
appeared as if it endured independent of those vulgar appendages
indeed.
"Looks like they've got the barn where the house ought to be," said
Taterleg. "I'll bet the wind takes the hide off of a feller up here in
the wintertime."
"It's about as bleak a place for a house as a man could pick," Lambert
agreed. He checked his horse a moment to look round on the vast sweep of
country presented to view from the height, the river lying as bright as
quicksilver in the dun land.
"Not even a wire fence to break it!" Taterleg drew his shoulders up and
shivered in the hot morning sun as he contemplated the untrammeled
roadway of the northern winds. "Well, sir, it looks to me like a cyclone
carried that house from somewheres and slammed it down. No man in his
right senses ever built it there."
"People take queer freaks sometimes, even in their senses. I guess we
can ride right around to the door."
But for the wide, weathered porch they could have ridden up to it and
knocked on its panels from the saddle. Taterleg was for going to the
kitchen door, a suggestion which the Duke scorned. He didn't want to
meet that girl at a kitchen door, even her own kitchen door. For that he
was about to meet her, there was no doubt in him that moment.
He was not in a state of trembling eagerness, but of calm expectation,
as a man might be justified in who had made his preparations and felt
the outcome sure. He even smiled as he pictured her surprise, like a man
returning home unexpectedly, but to a welcome of which he held no doubt.
Taterleg remained mounted while Lambert went to the door. It was a
rather inhospitable appearing door of solid oak, heavy and dark. There
was a narrow pane of beveled glass set into it near the top, beneath it
a knocker that must have been hammered by a hand in some far land
centuries before the house on the mesa was planned.
A negro woman, rheumatic, old, came to the door. Miss Philbrook was at
the barn, she said. What did they want of her? Were they looking for
work? To these questions Lambert made no reply. As he turned back to
his horse the old serving woman came to the porch, leaving the door
swinging wide, giving a view into the hall, which was furnished with a
profusion and luxuriance that Taterleg never had seen before.
The old woman watched the Duke keenly as he swung into the saddle in the
suppleness of his youthful grace. She shaded her eyes against the sun,
looking after him still as he rode with his companion toward the barn.
Chickens were making the barnyard lots comfortable with their noise,
some dairy cows of a breed alien to that range waited in a lot to be
turned out to the day's grazing; a burro put its big-eared head round
the corner of a shed, eying the strangers with the alert curiosity of a
nino of his native land. But the lady of the ranch was not in sight nor
sound.
Lambert drew up at the gate cutting the employees' quarters from the
barnyard, and sat looking things over. Here was a peace and security, an
atmosphere of contentment and comfort, entirely lacking in the
surroundings of the house. The buildings were all of far better class
than were to be found on the ranches of that country; even the bunkhouse
a house, in fact, and not a shed-roofed shack.
"I wonder where she's at?" said Taterleg, leaning and peering. "I don't
see her around here nowheres."
"I'll go down to the bunkhouse and see if there's anybody around,"
Lambert said, for he had a notion, somehow, that he ought to meet her on
foot.
Taterleg remained at the gate, because he looked better on a horse than
off, and he was not wanting in that vain streak which any man with a
backbone and marrow in him possesses. He wanted to appear at his best
when the boss of that high-class outfit laid her eyes on him for the
first time; and if he had hopes that she might succumb to his charms,
they were no more extravagant than most men's are under similar
conditions.
Off to one side of a long barn Lambert saw her as he opened the gate.
She was trying to coax a young calf to drink out of a bucket that an old
negro held under its nose. Perhaps his heart climbed a little, and his
eyes grew hot with a sudden surge of blood, after the way of youth, as
he went forward.
He could not see her face fully, for she was bending over the calf, and
the broad brim of her hat interposed. She looked up at the sound of his
approach, a startled expression in her frank, gray eyes. Handsome, in
truth, she was, in her riding habit of brown duck, her heavy sombrero,
her strong, high boots. Her hair was the color of old honeycomb, her
face browned by sun and wind.
She was a maid to gladden a man's heart, with the morning sun upon her,
the strength of her great courage in her clear eyes; a girl of breeding,
as one could see by her proud carriage.
But she was _not_ the girl whose handkerchief he had won in his reckless
race with the train!