THE MEETING
A word started the horses into a lope. The buckboard was whirled along
over the last two miles to Stockchute in a wild race against the
train. The steam horse won. It had sidetracked the private car
attached to the rear of the last pullman and was puffing away
westward, when Ashton guided his running team in among the crude
shacks of the town. He swung around at a more moderate pace towards
the big chute for cattle-loading, and fetched up a few yards out from
the rear step of the private car.
An assiduous porter had already swung down with a box step. A big,
square-faced, square-framed man of twenty-eight or thirty stepped out
into the car vestibule. He sprang to the ground as Miss Knowles
stepped from the buckboard. She had lowered her veil, but it failed to
mask the extreme brilliancy of her eyes and her quick changes of
color. Her face, flushed from the excitement of the race into town,
went white when she first saw the man in the vestibule; flushed again
when he sprang down; again paled; and, last of all, glowed radiantly
as she advanced to meet him.
He hastened to her, baring his big head of its Panama, and staring at
her fashionable hat and dress in frank surprise.
"Mr. Blake!" she murmured.
At the sound of her voice he started and fixed his light blue eyes on
her veiled face with a keen glance. She turned pale and as quickly
blushed, as if embarrassed by his scrutiny.
"Excuse me!" he apologized. "You are Miss Knowles?"
"Yes," she murmured.
"Knowles?" he repeated, half to himself. "Strange! Haven't I met you
before?"
"In Denver?" she suggested. "I spend my winters in Denver. But there
was one in Europe."
"No, it wouldn't be either. You must excuse me, Miss Knowles. There
was something about your voice and face--rather threw me off my
balance. If you'll kindly overlook the bungling start-off! I'm greatly
pleased to meet you. My wife will be, too. May I ask you to step
aboard the car?--No, here she is now."
A graceful, rather small lady, dressed with elegant simplicity, had
come out into the car vestibule.
"Jenny, here's Miss Knowles now," said Blake. "She came to meet us
herself."
"That was very good of you, Miss Knowles," said the lady, as the two
advanced towards her. "We are very glad to meet you. Will you not
come up out of the sun?"
The white-uniformed porter promptly stood at attention. Blake as
promptly offered his hand. The girl accepted his assistance and
mounted the car steps with an absence of awkwardness instantly noted
by Mrs. Blake. That lady held out a somewhat thin white hand as Isobel
drew off her gauntlet gloves. But she did not stop with the light firm
handclasp. Lifting the girl's veil, she kissed her full on her coral
lips.
"We shall be friends," she stated, a smile in her hazel eyes.
"I hope so," murmured the girl, blushing with delight. "The only
question is whether you will like me."
Mrs. Blake patted the plump, sunbrowned hand that she had not yet
relinquished. She was little if any older than the girl, but her air
was that of matronly wisdom. "My dear, can you doubt it? I was
prepared to like even the kind of young woman my husband told me to
expect."
"Bronco Bess, Queen of the Cattle Camp," suggested the girl, dimpling.
"Wait till you see me rope and hogtie a steer."
Mrs. Blake smiled, and looked across at Ashton, who sat motionless
under the shadow of his big sombrero, his face half averted from the
car.
"I've a real surprise for you," said the girl. "Mr. Blake, if I may
tell it to you also."
Blake swung up the steps, hat in hand. "It can't be half as pleasant
as the surprise you've already given us," he said.
"I fear not," she replied, with a quick change to gravity. She looked
earnestly into their faces. "Still, I hope--yes, I really believe it
will please you when you consider it. But first, I want to tell you
that out here it's our notion that a man should be rated according to
his present life, and not blamed for his past mistakes."
"Certainly not!" agreed Mrs. Blake, with a swift glance at her
husband. "If a man has mounted to a higher level, he should be upheld,
not dragged down again."
"That's good old-style Western fair play," added Blake.
"I'm so glad you take it that way!" said Isobel. "A young man utterly
ruined in fortune--partly at least through his own fault--came to us
and asked to be hired. He has been a hard worker and a gentleman. His
name is Lafayette Ashton."
"Ashton?" said Blake, his face as impassive as a granite mask.
"Yes. He has told me all about the bridge. He wished to go away,
because he thought you and Mrs. Blake would not like to meet him. I
told him you would be willing to let bygones be bygones, and help him
start off with a new tally card."
"Lafayette Ashton working--as a cowboy!" murmured Mrs. Blake.
"He is still a good deal of a tenderfoot. But he is learning fast; and
work!--the way he pesters Daddy to find him something to do!"
"He certainly must be a changed man," dryly commented Blake.
"_Cherchez la femme_," said his wife.
"Mrs. Blake!" protested the girl, blushing.
"What's that?" he asked.
"'Find the woman,'" explained Mrs. Blake.
"That's easy," he said, fixing his twinkling eyes on the rosy-faced
girl.
"But I'm sure it has not been because of me--at least not altogether,"
she qualified with her uncompromising honesty.
"I wouldn't blame him even if it was altogether," said Blake.
"Then you will be willing to overlook your past trouble with him?"
"Since you say he has straightened out--yes."
"That's good of you! That's what I expected of you!" exclaimed the
girl. "That is he, in the buckboard."
Without a word, Blake started down the car steps.
"Bring him here at once, Tom," said Mrs. Blake.
Her husband went up beside the motionless figure in the buckboard and
held out his hand. "Glad to meet you, Ashton," he said with
matter-of-fact heartiness. "Jenny wants you to come to her. We're not
ready to start, as we were not certain we would be met."
"Miss--Mrs. Blake wishes me to come!" mumbled Ashton.
"Yes," said Blake, gripping the other's hesitatingly extended hand.
Ashton flushed darkly. "But I--I can't leave the horses," he replied.
Blake signed to the porter, who hastened forward. "Hold the lines for
this gentleman, Sam."
Ashton reluctantly gave the lines into the mulatto's sallow hands and
stepped from the buckboard. His head hung forward as he followed
Blake. But at the foot of the steps he removed his sombrero and forced
himself to look up. Isobel was smiling down at him encouragingly. He
looked from her to Mrs. Blake, his handsome face crimson with shame.
"How do you do, Lafayette?" Mrs. Blake greeted him with quiet
cordiality. "This is a pleasant surprise."
"Yes--yes, indeed! I--yes, very!" he stammered, so embarrassed that he
would have stuck at the foot of the steps had not Blake started him up
with a vigorous boost.
Mrs. Blake gave him her hand. "You look so strong and hearty!" she
remarked. "It speaks well for the fare Miss Knowles provides."
"Oh, that credit is due our Jap chef," laughed the girl. "I can cut
out a cow from the herd better than I can bone a chop. But the butter
and eggs and cream that are awaiting you--Which reminds me that we've
yet to see It."
"It?" asked Blake.
"Yes, him--the _baby_!"
"Oh, you dear girl!" cooed Mrs. Blake. "Come in and see him."
Isobel followed her into the car. Blake nodded to Ashton. But the
younger man shrank away from the door.
"If you'll kindly excuse me," he muttered. "It would remind me too
much of--the time when--No, I'd rather not."
"Of course," assented Blake with ready understanding. "How do you like
this country? I went through here once on a railway survey. It's rare
good luck--this chance to visit Miss Knowles. Jenny is a little run
down, as you see."
"I shall trust that her visit to this locality will soon quite restore
her," remarked Ashton.
"It will. The doctors said Maine; I said Colorado. It has done you no
end of good. You are looking particularly fine and fit."
"It has helped me--in more ways than one," murmured Ashton.
"Glad to hear you say it!" responded Blake in hearty approval.
Ashton turned from him as Isobel appeared in the doorway, cuddling a
lusty, rosy-cheeked baby. The mother hovered close behind her.
"Look at him!" jeered Blake with heavily feigned derision. "Did you
ever see such a big, fat, lubberly--"
"Yes, look at him, Lafe," said the girl, stepping out into the
vestibule. "He is only a yearling, but isn't he just the perfect image
of his father?"
Ashton burst into a ringing laugh, but abruptly checked himself at
sight of the sober face of the young mother. "I--I beg pardon!" he
stammered. "I--she--Miss Knowles--that is what she told me to tell you
about him."
"And you didn't play up worth a little bit, Lafe!" complained the
girl.
It was Blake's turn to laugh. "You--!" he accused. "Schemed to frame
up a case on us did you!"
His wife smiled faintly, not altogether certain that an aspersion had
not been cast upon her chuckling son.
"But it's partly true, really," remarked Ashton, peering at the baby's
big pale-blue eyes.
Blake burst into a hilarious roar. But Mrs. Blake now beamed upon
Ashton. "Then you, too, see the resemblance, Lafayette! Isn't it
wonderful, and he so young? His name is Thomas Herbert Vincent Leslie
Blake.--Now, my dear, if you please, I shall take him in. We must be
preparing to start, if it is so long a drive."
"Do let me hold him until you and Mr. Blake are ready," begged the
girl.
"I am not quite sure that--You will be careful not to drop him? He is
tremendously strong, and he squirms," dubiously assented the fond
mother. "Come, Tom. We must not keep Miss Knowles waiting."
Blake disappeared with her into the luxuriously furnished car.
"Isn't he a dear?" cooed the girl, clasping the baby to her bosom and
kissing his chubby clenched hands. He stared up into her glowing face
with his round light-blue eyes. "Thomas Blake!--Tom Blake!" she
whispered.
Ashton did not heed the words. He was gazing too intently at the girl
and the child. His eyes glistened with a wonderment and longing so
exquisitely intense that it was like a pain. The girl sank down in one
of the cane chairs and laid the baby on his back. He kicked and
gurgled, seized one of his upraised feet and thrust a pink big toe in
between his white milk teeth.
"That's more than you can do, Lafe!" challenged the girl.
She glanced up, dimpling with merriment,--met the adoration in his
eyes, and looked down, blushing. He attempted to speak, but the words
choked into an incoherent sound like a sob. He jumped from the car and
hurried to take the lines from the porter.