JACK ROVER is a great boy,” said Dick Willoughby to Lieutenant Munson as
the two rode off at a leisurely pace toward the group of ranch buildings
peeping through a clump of trees at the edge of the foothills.
“A type of Western character,” replied Munson, “that in a way is quite
new to me. And yet, do you know, I rather like this Western atmosphere.”
“Like it!” exclaimed Dick. “Why, man, it is the atmosphere in which to
live, move and have one’s being.”
They both laughed at his enthusiasm.
“Really,” continued Dick, soberly, “I would not live another year in New
York City for all the property fronting on the Circle, the coming centre
of old Gotham. Out here a man is a man for what he is worth. You grow
bigger, you think broader thoughts, you are not confined to following
precedents or taking orders from the man higher up.”
“Oh, I know,” replied Munson, “or at least I am beginning to understand
something of what you mean. I have only been here ten days and I am
already feeling loath to return to my post.”
“Ches,” exclaimed Dick, turning abruptly and facing his companion,
“give it all up, old fellow, and come and live in this glorious
country—California! There’s music in the very name. It is the land of
sunshine, of fruits and flowers, and of pretty girls into the bargain.”
“You keep telling me of the pretty girls, but when am I to see them?”
questioned Munson. “If you have any real senoritas who will cause a
fellow to forsake his Eastern home and send in his resignation to army
headquarters, let me get a peep at them.”
Again they both laughed, this time at the challenge in Munson’s words.
“All right,” said Dick, “you shall see them. And, by the way, don’t
you remember that this is the very day we have arranged to call on Mrs.
Darlington at the Rancho La Siesta? It is a beautiful place, this little
rancho, and Mrs. Darlington you will find to be a most admirable woman.
But just wait until you see Grace Darlington.”
“How about Miss Farnsworth?”
“Not for you, old man,” replied the other quickly, reddening at the
temples. “Not as long as my name is Dick Willoughby—providing, you
understand, always providing that I shall prove successful in my
wooing.”
“Is it as bad as that, Dick?”
“Well,”—his laughing tone was only a mask to deeper feelings—“I cannot
deny that I am pretty hard hit.”
“My, but you do whet my impatience,” said the lieutenant. “And I am
about as anxious to be paying that afternoon call as I am to have my
breakfast. I don’t know how you feel, Dick, but I’m as hungry as a lean
coyote.” He paused a moment, then asked in a musing tone: “How far away
is this wonderful La Siesta Rancho?”
“Oh, only about twenty miles.”
“Twenty miles! You speak of miles out here in the same way as we speak
of city blocks back in New York. Surely it must be quite a farm.”
“Quite a farm? I should say! You musn’t confound our Californian ranchos
with Eastern farms, old man. Why, this rancho of San Antonio covers over
four hundred square miles of territory.”
“You astonish me.”
“La Siesta Rancho adjoins the great San Antonio possession and contains
comparatively few acres, just under three thousand. But it surely is
a beautiful little place, fixed up like a nobleman’s park in the old
world. And then the ladies—”
“Aha, the ladies,” repeated Munson, doffing his hat in courtly fashion
and smiling audaciously.
Dick touched the flank of his pony with his spur, and for a few
miles they rode on at a quicker pace and in silence. Soon they were
approaching the ranch buildings. On the outer edge was a little cottage,
covered with vines and surrounded by fruit trees, the place which Dick
Willoughby, the cattle foreman, had called “home” for the past five
years.
After turning their horses into a corral, they passed by way of a broad
verandah into a big room, roughly but comfortably furnished. Some logs
were smouldering in the fireplace, and quickly started into a bright
blaze when Dick kicked them together. The warmth was grateful, for while
out of doors everything was now bathed in genial sunshine, here the
morning air was still keen.
A Chinaman appeared from the back quarters, and smiled expectantly.
“Breakfast, Sing Ling,” called out Dick, “and just as quick as you can
serve it.”
Sing Ling departed as noiselessly as he had come.
“These are certainly great quarters,” observed Munson, settling himself
in a big Old Mission rocker and glancing around.
The walls, curiously enough, were pretty well covered with pen-and-ink
sketches and designs of buildings that might have adorned an architect’s
office, while there was a partly completed landscape painting in oils
standing on a rudely fashioned easel.
“And you’ve certainly stuck to the old line of work, Dick,” the
lieutenant went on.
“Of course one must have something to think about when he is all alone
in a new country,” replied Willoughby. “But most of that stuff I did
in my first year here,” he added, following the other’s survey of the
walls.
“You still paint, however,” remarked Munson, his eyes resting on the
unfinished canvas.
“Or try to,” was the laughing response.
“Oh, that’s a modest way of putting it. Do you know, old man,” Munson
went on, “since I came here I have often thought what a marvelous change
has been wrought in you—what a transplanting has taken place? You were
a chronic New Yorker, except for that one year you spent in the Latin
Quarter of gay Paree. You thought then you were going to make a great
painter. And, by gad, I almost believe so myself,” he added, bending
forward to make a more critical scrutiny of the work on the easel. “By
jove, that’s really fine, Dick.”
“I’m afraid that’s flattery, Chester, my boy,” responded Willoughby.
“However, it sounds good to hear you say so. A word of appreciation
is what all hearts hunger for. Personally I even believe in a moderate
amount of flattery. Its psychic influence is more potent in arousing and
causing the heart to throb with ambition than all the stimulants, drugs
or reasoning in the world. Indeed, without a certain amount of flattery
one becomes ambitionless, languid, and perishes; whereas the unexpected
caress or kindly words of praise from loved ones, just or unjust, adds
more strength to the good right arm of the breadwinner than all the beef
in Christendom, and makes the sunshine seem brighter and earth’s every
breeze a south wind blowing across beds of violets.”
“A bit of a poet, too, I see,” smiled Munson.
Willoughby made no reply. He had crossed over to the open door and was
looking out on the valley that stretched away for miles—great oak trees
in the foreground, with cattle-dotted pasture lands beyond. Waving his
hand toward the vast expanse, he said:
“Just look at that for a picture, and see how tame a man-made gallery is
as compared with this great art gallery of Nature. Do you know, Ches, I
despise New York? There was a time, when I first came here, that I felt
I should die of ennui, yearning for the Great White Way once again. But
I have outgrown all that. I know now, thank God, there’s nothing to it.
Here a man can fill his lungs with pure air, and at the same time feast
his soul all day long with beautiful things.”
There followed a brief interval of silence. Munson had risen and joined
his comrade at the door. Both were gazing over the glorious sunlit sweep
of territory rimmed by the distant, pine-clad hills. In the heart of
Dick Willoughby was supreme contentment, in that of Chester Munson a
vague longing to get away from red-tape army routine and breathe the
exhilarating and inspiring freedom of life in the open.
“Blakeflast,” bleated a soft voice behind them, and turning round they
found the suave, smiling Chinaman with hand outstretched toward the
smoking viands upon the table. Sentiment was instantly forgotten in
favor of lamb chops grilled to a turn, a great fluffled omelette with
fine herbs that would have done credit to a Parisian chef, and coffee
that was veritable nectar.
At last appetite was satisfied. The lieutenant had produced his cigar
case, Dick was filling his briar-root pipe with tobacco from the
humidor. The latter spoke:
“Say, Ches, we were talking about New York. Do you want me to give you a
toast on that modern Babylon?”
“Sure, old man, go ahead! You know I haven’t lost my interest in old
Gotham, by any manner of means. It may the a modern Babylon. But to me
it is none the less the greatest of American cities.”
“That’s just the trouble,” said Dick, seriously. “It is too great. There
identities are swallowed up. Individualism cannot survive. It is all one
great composite.”
“Well, let us hear the toast.”
Dick raised his cup of coffee and said: “Very well, here it is; here is
my opinion of New York:
‘Vulgar in manners; overfed,
Over-dressed and under-bred;
Heartless, godless, hell’s delight,
Rude by day and lewd by night.
Bedwarfed the man, enlarged the brute;
Ruled by boss and prostitute.
Purple robed and pauper clad;
Raving, rotten, money mad;
A squirming herd in Mammon’s mesh;
A wilderness of human flesh;
Crazed by avarice, lust and rum—
New York! thy name’s delirium.’.rdquo;
“Great Heavens, old man,” exclaimed Munson, when Dick had finished, “you
are severe, to say the least.”
Willoughby laughed good-naturedly as he passed the match box to his
friend.
“Not severe, only truthful,” he said. “You see, in New York no man
dares think for himself. Everything is controlled by a machine-appointed
chairman, secretary and committee, and you must hear the resolutions
read before you know the doctrine you are perforce to advocate.”
Then he lit his pipe and rose from the table.
“Now, I have a lot of things to attend to, old fellow,” he resumed.
“Make yourself comfortable. Here’s a bunch of Eastern newspapers—oh, I
read them regularly, haven’t got rid of that bad habit yet. I’ll tell
Sing Ling to have lunch ready on the stroke of noon. Then we’ll be in
good time to start out for the Rancho La Siesta. So long!”