QUEEN OF WHAT?
Heedless of the men behind him, Ashton rode off with his ardent gaze
fixed admiringly upon his companion. The more he looked at her the
more astonished and gratified he was to have found so charming a girl
in this raw wilderness.
As a city man, he might have considered the healthy color that glowed
under the tan of her cheeks a trifle too pronounced, had it not been
offset by the delicate mold of her features. Her eyes were as blue as
alpine forget-me-nots.
Though she sat astride and the soft coils of her chestnut hair were
covered with a broad-brimmed felt hat, he was puzzled to find that
there really was nothing of the Wild West cowgirl in her costume and
bearing. Her modest gray riding dress was cut in the very latest
style. If her manner differed from that of most young ladies of his
acquaintance, it was only in her delightful frankness and total
absence of affectation. Yet she could not be a city girl on a visit,
for she sat her horse with the erect, long-stirruped, graceful,
yielding seat peculiar to riders of the cattle ranges.
"Do you know," he gave voice to his curiosity, as she directed their
course slantingly down the ridge away from Deep Canyon, "I am simply
dying to learn, Miss Chuckie--"
"Perhaps you had better make it 'Miss Knowles,'" she suggested, with a
quiet smile that checked the familiarity of his manner.
"Ah, yes--pardon me!--'Miss Knowles,' of course," he murmured. "But,
you know, so unusual a name--"
"You mean Chuckie?" she asked. "It formerly was quite common in the
West--was often used as a nickname. My real name is Isobel. I
understand that Chuckie comes from the Spanish Chiquita."
"Chiquita!" he exclaimed. "But that is not a regular name. It is only
a term of endearment, like Nina. And you say Chuckie comes from
Chiquita? Chiquita--dear one!"
His large dark eyes glowed at her brilliant with audacious admiration.
Her color deepened, but she replied with perfect composure: "You see
why I prefer to be addressed as 'Miss Knowles'--by you."
"Yet you permitted that common cowpuncher to call you Miss Chuckie."
The girl smiled ironically. "For one thing, Mr. Ashton, I have known
Kid Gowan over eight years, and, for another, he is hardly a _common_
cowpuncher."
"He looks ordinary enough to me."
"Well, well!" she rallied. "I should have thought that even to the
innocent gaze of a tenderfoot--Let me hasten to explain that the
common or garden variety of cowshepherd is to be distinguished in many
respects from his predecessor of the Texas trail."
"Texas trail?" he rejoined. "Now I know you're trying to string me.
This Gowan can't be much older than I am."
The girl dropped her bantering tone, and answered soberly: "He is only
twenty-five, and yet he is a full generation older than you. He was
born and raised in a cow camp. He is one of the few men of the type
that remain to link the range of today with the vanished world of the
cattle frontier."
"Yet you say that the fellow is only my age?"
"In years, yes. But in type he belongs to the generation that is
past--the generation of longhorns, long drives, long Colt's, and short
lives; of stampedes, and hats like yours, badmen, and Injins."
"Surely you cannot mean that this--You called him 'Kid.'"
"Kid Gowan," she confirmed. "Yes, he holds to the old traditions even
in that. There are six notches on the hilt of his 'gun,' if you count
the two little ones he nicked for his brace of Utes."
"What! He is a real Indian fighter, like Kit Carson?"
"Oh, no, it was merely a band of hide hunters that came over the line
from Utah, and Mr. Gowan helped the game warden run them back to their
reservation."
"He actually killed two of them?"
"Yes," replied the girl, her gravity deepening to a concerned frown.
"The worst of it is that I'm not altogether certain it was necessary.
Men out here, as a rule, think much too little of the life of an
Indian."
"Ah!" murmured Ashton. "Two Indians. But didn't you speak of six
notches?"
"Six," confirmed the girl, her brow partly clearing. "The others were
different. Three were rustlers. The sheriff's posse overtook them.
Both sides were firing. Kid circled around and shot three. He happened
to have a long-range rifle. Daddy says they threw up their hands when
the first one fell; but Kid explained to me that he was too far away
to see it."
"Ah!" murmured Ashton the second time, and he put up his hand to the
hole in the front of his sombrero.
"The last was two years ago," went on the girl. "There was a dispute
over a maverick. Kid was tried and acquitted on his plea of
self-defense. There were no witnesses. He claimed that the other man
drew first. Two empty shells were found in the other man's revolver,
and only one in Kid's. That cleared him."
Ashton took off his hat and stared at the holes where the heavy
forty-four bullet had gone in and gone out. He was silent.
"You see, poor Kid has been unfortunate," remarked the girl, as she
headed her pony down over the edge of the mesa. "That time with the
rustlers, all the posse were firing, and he just happened to be the
one that got the best aim; and the time with the Indians, I'm sure he
did not shoot to kill. It just happened that way. He told me so
himself."
Ashton ran his tongue over his lip. "Yes--I suppose so," he muttered.
"Kid has all the good qualities and only a few of the faults of the
old-time cowboys," went on the girl. "He is almost fiercely loyal to
Daddy's interests. That's why he led a raid on a sheep outfit, four
years ago, when almost half of a large flock were run over into Deep
Canyon--poor innocent beasts! Daddy was furious with Kid; but there was
no legal proof as to who were members of the attacking party, and the
sheep were destroying our range. All of Daddy's cattle would have
starved."
"He was not punished?" murmured Ashton.
"Daddy could not be expected to discharge him, could he, when Kid did
it to save our range? You see, it was just because he was so very
loyal. You must not think from these things that he--It is true he is
suspicious of strangers, but he always has been very kind and gentle
to me. I am very fond of him."
"You are?" exclaimed Ashton, stirred from his uneasy depression. "I
should hardly have thought him the kind to interest a girl like you."
"Really?" she bantered. "Why not? I have lived on the range ever since
I was fourteen."
He stared at her incredulously. "Since you were fourteen?"
"For nine years," she added, smiling at his astonishment.
"But--it can't be," he protested, his eyes on her stylish costume. "At
least, not all the time."
She nodded at him encouragingly. "So you _can_ see--a little. Nearly
all my winters have been spent in Denver, except one in Europe."
"Europe?" he repeated.
"We didn't cross in a cattle boat," she flashed back at him, dimpling
mischievously. "Nor did I go as the Queen of the Rancho, or of the
Roundup, or even of the Wild and Woolly Outlaw Band."
He flushed with mortification. "I am only too well aware, Miss
Knowles, how you must regard me."
"Oh, I do not regard you at all--as yet," she bantered. "But of course
I could not expect you to know that Daddy's sister is one of the
Sacred Thirty-six."
"Sacred--? Is that one of the orders of nuns?"
"None whatever," she punned. In the same moment she drew a most
solemn looking face. "My deah Mistah Ashton, I will have you to
understand my reference was to that most select coterie which
comprises Denver's Real Society."
"Indeed!" he said, with a subtle alteration in his tone and manner.
"You say that your aunt is one of--"
"My aunt by adoption," she corrected.
"Adoption?"
"I am not Daddy's natural daughter. He adopted me," explained the girl
in her frank way.
"Yes?" asked Ashton, plainly eager to learn more of her history.
Without seeming to observe this, she adroitly balked his curiosity--"So,
you see, Daddy's sister is only my aunt by adoption. Still, she has been
very, very good to me; though I love Daddy and this free outdoor
life so much that I insist on coming back home every spring."
"Ah, yes, I see," he replied. "Really, Miss Knowles, you must think me
a good deal of a dub."
"Oh, well, allowances should be made for a tenderfoot," she bantered.
"At least I recognized your queenliness, even if at first I did
mistake what you were queen of," he thrust back.
"So you still insist I'm a queen? Of what, pray?"
"Of Hearts!" he answered with fervor.
His daring was rewarded with a lovely blush. But she was only
momentarily disconcerted.
"I am not so sure of that," she replied. "Though it's not Queen of
Spades, because I do not have to work; and it can't be Diamonds,
because Daddy is no more than comfortably well to do--only six
thousand head of stock. But as for Hearts--No, I'm sure it must be
Clubs; I do so love to knock around. Really, if ever they break up
this range, it will break my heart same time."
"Break up the range? How do you mean?"
"Put it under irrigation and turn it into orchards and farms, as they
have done so many places here on the Western Slope. You know, Colorado
apples and peaches are fast becoming famous even in Europe."
"I do not wonder, not in the least--if I am to judge from a certain
sample of the Colorado peach," he ventured.
This time she did not blush. "I am quite serious, Mr. Ashton," she
reproved him. "Daddy owns only five sections. The rest of his range is
public land. If settlers should come in and homestead it, he would
have to quit the cattle business. You cannot realize how fearfully we
are watching the irrigation projects--all the Government reclamation
work, and the private dams, too. There seems to be no water that can
be put on Dry Mesa, yet the engineers are doing such wonderful things
these days."
Ashton straightened on his saddle. "That is quite true, Miss Knowles.
You know, I myself am an engineer."
"Oh!" she exclaimed in dismay. "You, an engineer? Have you come here
to see if our mesa can be irrigated?"
"No, indeed, no, I shall not do that," he replied. "I have not the
slightest thought of such a project. I am merely out for sport."
She eyed him uncertainly. "But--We get all the reports--There is an
Ashton connected with that wonderful Zariba Dam, just being finished
in Arizona."
"That is my father. He is interested in it with a Mr. Leslie. They are
financing the project. But I have nothing to do with it, nothing
whatever, I assure you. The engineer is another man, a fellow
named--"
He paused as if unable to remember. The girl looked at him with a
shade of disappointment in her clear eyes.
"A Mr. Blake--Thomas Blake," she supplied the name. "I thought you
might have known him."
"Ah--Blake?" he murmured hesitatingly. "Why, yes, I did at one time
have somewhat of an acquaintance with him."
"You did?" she cried, her eyes brilliant with excitement. "Oh, tell
me! I--" She faltered under his surprised stare, and went on rather
lamely: "You see, I--we have been immensely interested in the Zariba
Dam. The reports all describe it as an extraordinary work of
engineering. And so we have been curious to learn something about the
engineer."
"But if you're so opposed to irrigation projects?" he thrust.
"That makes no difference," she parried. "We--Daddy and I--cannot but
admire such a remarkable engineer."
Ashton shrugged. "The dam was a big thing. I fail to see why you
should admire Blake just because he happened to blunder on the idea
that solved the difficulty."
"You do not like him," she said with frank directness.
He hesitated and looked away. When he replied it was with evident
reluctance: "No, I do not. He is--You would hardly admire him
personally, even though he did bully Genevieve Leslie into marrying
him."
"He is married?" exclaimed the girl.
"No wonder you are surprised," said Ashton. "It was the most amazing
thing imaginable--she the daughter of H. V. Leslie, one of our
wealthiest financiers, and he a rough, uncouth drunkard."
"Drunkard?" almost screamed the girl. "No, no, not drunkard! I cannot
believe it!"
"He certainly was one until just before Genevieve married him,"
insisted Ashton. "I hear he has managed to keep sober since."
"O-o-oh!" sighed Miss Isobel, making no effort to conceal her vast
relief. She attempted a smile. "I am so glad to hear that he is all
right now. Of course he must be!... You say he married an heiress?"
"She is worth three millions in her own right, and Leslie is as daft
over him as she is. Leslie and my father are the ones who backed him
on the Zariba Dam."
"How interesting! And I suppose Mr. Blake is a Western man. So many of
the best engineers come from the West."
Ashton looked at her suspiciously. He could not make out her interest
in Blake. She apparently had come to regard the engineer as a sort of
hero. Yet why should she continue to inquire about him, now that she
knew he was a married man?
"I'm sure I cannot tell you," he replied, somewhat stiffly. "The
fellow seems to have come from nowhere. Had it not been for an
accident, he would never have got within speaking distance of
Genevieve, but they happened to be shipwrecked together alone--on the
coast of Africa."
"Wrecked?--shipwrecked? How perfectly glorious!"
"I wouldn't mind it myself--with you!" he flashed back.
"I might," she bantered. "This Mr. Blake, I imagine, was hardly a
tenderfoot."
"No, he was a roughneck," muttered Ashton.
"You do not like him," she remarked the second time.
"Why should I, a low fellow like that? I've heard that he even brags
that he started in the Chicago slums."
The girl put her hand to her bosom. "In the--the Chicago slums!" she
half whispered.
"No wonder you are surprised," said Ashton. "Anyone would presume
that he would keep such a disgrace to himself. It shows what he
is--absolutely devoid of good taste."
"Is he--What does he look like?" she eagerly inquired.
Ashton shrugged. "Pardon me. I prefer not to talk any more about the
fellow."
Miss Isobel checked her curiosity. "Very well, Mr. Ashton." She looked
around, and suddenly flourished her leathern quirt. "Look--there are
Kid and Daddy trying to head us. Come on, if you want a race. I'm
going to beat them down to Dry Fork."