evening, with the collies at his feet, and commune with nature as
amicably as if she had been his best friend. Between his cabin door and
"the range" stretched twenty miles of arid prairie; but when the sun was
in the west, the wide expanse took on all the mystic hues that the
Orientals love and seek to imitate, and he gazed across it to the
towering peaks with a sense of ownership which no paternal acres, no
velvet lawns, nor stately trees, could have awakened in him. A row of
telegraph-poles, which had doubtless once been trees, straggled along
the line of the railroad, a few miles to the north, and his own windmill
indicated the presence of water underground. But as far as the eye could
reach not a living tree could be seen, not a glimmer of a lake or
rivulet; only the palpitating plain and the soaring peaks, and at his
feet the cluster of faithful friends, gazing, from time to time, with
rapt devotion into his face.
On these meditative evenings Stanwood found a leisurely companionship in
reminiscences of better days; reminiscences more varied and brilliant
than most men have for solace. But it was part of his philosophy never
to dwell on painful contrasts. Even in the memory of his wife, whom he
had adored and lost, even into that memory he allowed no poignant
element to enter. He thought of her strong and gay and happy, making a
joy of life. He never permitted the recollection of her illness and
death, nor of his own grief, to intrude itself. Indeed he had succeeded
in reality, as well as in retrospect, in evading his grief. There had
been a little daughter of six, who had formed part of the painful
association which his temperament rebelled against. Foregoing, in her
favor, the life-interest in her mother's estate to which he was
entitled, he had placed the child under the guardianship of an uncle
whom he equally disliked and trusted, and, having thus disposed of his
last responsibility, he had gone forth into what proved to be the very
diverting world of Europe. The havoc which some ten years' sojourn
wrought in his very considerable fortune would force one to the
conclusion that he had amused himself with gambling; but whether in
stocks, or at faro tables, or in some more subtle wise, was known only
to himself.
He had returned to his own country by way of Japan and San Francisco,
and then he had set his face to the East, with an idea that he must
repair his shattered fortunes. When once the Rocky Mountains were
crossed, however, and no longer stood as a bulwark between him and
unpleasant realities, he suddenly concluded to go no farther. It struck
him that he was hardly prepared for the hand-to-hand struggle with
fortune which he had supposed himself destined to; it would be more in
his line to take up a claim and live there as master, though it were
only master of a desert.
The little daughter, with whom he kept up a desultory correspondence,
had expressed her regret in a letter written in the stiff, carefully
worded style of "sweet sixteen," and he had never guessed the passion of
disappointment which the prim little letter concealed.
This had happened five years ago. He had taken up his claim
successfully, but there success ended. After four years or more of
rather futile "ranching," he sold most of his stock to his men, who
promptly departed with it, and proceeded to locate a claim a few miles
distant. The incident amused him as illustrating the dignity of labor,
and kindred philosophical theories which the present age seems invented
to establish.
One horse, a couple of cows, and his six collie dogs of assorted ages
and sizes, he still retained, and with their assistance he was rapidly
making away with the few hundreds accruing from the sale of his stock
and farming implements. He had placed the money in the bank at Cameron
City, a small railroad-station in a hollow five miles north of him, and
it was when his eyes fell upon the rapidly diminishing monthly balance
that he thought he saw coming that unpleasant alternative of which
mention has been made.
He found no little entertainment, after the departure of his men, in
converting their late sleeping-apartment into what he was pleased to
call a "museum." To this end nothing further was necessary, after
removing all traces of their late occupancy, than that two old
sole-leather trunks should render up their contents, consisting of
half-forgotten souvenirs of travel. The change was magic. Unmounted
photographs appeared upon the wall, an ivory Faust and Gretchen from
Nuremberg stood, self-centred and unobservant, upon the chimney-shelf
among trophies from Turkey, and Japan, Spain, and Norway. A gorgeous
_kimono_ served as curtain at the south window, a Persian altar-cloth at
the west; and through the west window, the great Peak gazed with stolid
indifference upon all that splendor, while the generous Colorado
sunshine poured itself in at the south in unstinted measure, just as
lavishly as if its one mission had been to illuminate the already
gorgeous display.
And then, when all was done, Stanwood found to his surprise, that he
still liked best to sit at his cabin-door, and watch the play of light
on peak and prairie.
Late one afternoon, as he sat in the doorway, at peace with himself, and
in agreeable harmony with the world as he beheld it, his eye was caught
by an indistinguishable object moving across the plain from the
direction of Cameron City. He regarded it as he might have regarded the
progress of a coyote or prairie-dog, till it stopped at his own gate,
half a mile to the northward. A vague feeling of dissatisfaction came
over him at the sight, but he did not disturb himself, nor make any
remarks to the dogs on the subject. They however soon pricked up their
ears, and sprang to their feet, excited and pleased. They were
hospitable souls and welcomed the diversion of a visitor. As the wagon
drew nearer, Stanwood observed that there was a woman sitting beside the
driver; whereupon he repaired to his own room to give himself a hasty
polish. The dogs began to bark in a friendly manner, and, under cover of
their noise, the wagon came up and stopped before the door. Suddenly a
rap resounded, and in acknowledgment of this unusual ceremony, the
master of the house went so far as to pull on his best coat before
stepping out into the main room. There in the doorway, cutting off the
view of the Peak, stood a tall, well-dressed young woman, patting one of
the dogs, while the others leaped, barking, about her.
Somewhat mystified by this apparition, Stanwood approached, and said;
"Good-evening, madam."
"Good-evening," came the reply, in a rather agitated voice. "I'm
Elizabeth."
"The deuce you are!"
Struck, not by the unfatherly, but by the ungentlemanly nature of his
response, Stanwood promptly gathered himself together, to meet the
situation.
"Pray come in and take a seat," he said; and then, falling into the
prairie speech: "Where are you stopping?"
The tall young lady, who had entered, but who had not taken the
proffered seat, looked at him a moment, and then she came toward him
with a swift, impulsive movement, and said: "Why, papa, I don't believe
you know me! I'm Elizabeth!"
"Yes, yes, oh, yes! I understand. But I thought perhaps you were paying
a visit somewhere--some school friend, you know, or--or--yes--some
school friend."
The girl was looking at him half bewildered, half solicitous. It was not
the reception she had anticipated at the end of her two-thousand-mile
journey. But then, this was not the man she had expected to see--this
gaunt, ill-clad figure, with the worn, hollow-eyed face, and the gray
hair. Why, her father was only fifty years old, yet the lines she saw
were lines of age and suffering. Suddenly all her feeling of perplexity
and chagrin and wounded pride was merged in a profound tenderness. She
drew nearer, extending both her hands, placed them gently upon his
shoulders and said: "Will you please to give me a kiss?"
Stanwood, much abashed, bent his head toward the blooming young face,
and imprinted a perfunctory kiss upon the waiting lips. This
unaccustomed exercise completed his discomfiture. For the first time in
his life he felt himself unequal to a social emergency.
A curious sensation went over Elizabeth. Somehow she felt as if she had
been kissed by a total stranger. She drew back and picked up her small
belongings. For a moment Stanwood thought she was going.
"Don't you get your mail out here any more?" she asked.
"Not very regularly," he replied, guiltily conscious of possessing two
or three illegible letters from his daughter which he had not yet had
the enterprise to decipher.
"Then you did not expect me?"
"Well, no, I can't say I did. But"--with a praiseworthy if not
altogether successful effort--"I am very glad to see you, my dear."
The first half of this speech was so much more convincing than the last,
that the girl felt an unpleasant stricture about her throat, and knew
herself to be on the verge of tears.
"I could go back," she said, with a pathetic little air of dignity.
"Perhaps you would not have any place to put me if I should stay."
"Oh, yes; I can put you in the museum"--and he looked at her with the
first glimmer of appreciation, feeling that she would be a creditable
addition to his collection of curiosities.
Elizabeth met his look with one of quick comprehension, and then she
broke into a laugh which saved the day. It was a pleasant laugh in
itself, and furthermore, if she had not laughed just at that juncture
she would surely have disgraced herself forever by a burst of tears.
Cy Willows, meanwhile, believing that "the gal and her pa" would rather
not be observed at their first meeting, had discreetly busied himself
with the two neat trunks which his passenger had brought.
"Hullo, Jake!" he remarked, as the ranchman appeared at the door; "this
is a great day for you, ain't it?"
The two men took hold of one of the trunks together, and carried it into
the museum. When the door opened, Willows almost dropped his end from
sheer amazement. He stood in the middle of the room, staring from Venus
to altar-cloth, from altar-cloth to censer.
"Gosh!" he remarked at last. "Your gal's struck it rich!"
The "gal" took it more quietly. To her, the master of this fine
apartment was not Jake Stanwood, the needy ranchman, but Jacob Stanwood,
Esq., gentleman and scholar, to the manor born. She stepped to the
window, and looked out across the shimmering plain to the rugged peaks
and the warm blue slopes of "the range," and a sigh of admiration
escaped her.
"Oh, papa!" she cried, "how beautiful it is!"
"And I'll be durned if 't wa' n't the mountings the gal was looking at
all the time!" Cy Willows declared, when reporting upon the astonishing
situation at the ranch.
Stanwood himself was somewhat impressed by the girl's attitude. The
museum had come to seem to his long unaccustomed mind a very splendid
apartment indeed. When, a few minutes later, Elizabeth joined him in the
rudely furnished living-room of the cabin, he felt something very like
chagrin at her first observation.
"Oh, papa!" she cried. "I'm so glad the rest of it is a real ranch
house! I've always wanted to see just how a real ranchman lives!"
He thought ruefully that she would soon learn, to her cost, how a very
poverty-stricken ranchman lived. His examination of the larder had not
been encouraging.
"I am afraid we shall have rather poor pickings for supper, my dear," he
said apologetically. He called her "my dear" from the first; it seemed
more non-committal and impersonal than the use of her name. He had not
called a young lady by her first name for fifteen years.
"I have my dinner in the middle of the day," he went on, "and I seem to
have run short of provisions this evening."
"I suppose you have a man-cook," she remarked, quite ignoring his
apology.
"Yes," he replied grimly. "I have the honor to fill that office myself."
"Why; isn't there anybody else about the place?"
"No. I'm 'out of help' just now, as old Madam Gallup used to say. I
don't suppose you remember old Madam Gallup."
"Oh, yes, I do! Mama used to have her to dinner every Sunday. She looked
like a duchess, but when she died people said she died of starvation.
That was the year after you went away," she added thoughtfully.
It seemed very odd to hear this tall young woman say "mama," and to
realize that it was that other Elizabeth that she was laying claim to.
Why, the girl seemed almost as much of a woman as her mother. Fifteen
years! A long time to be sure. He ought to have known better than to
have slipped into reminiscences at the very outset. Uncomfortable
things, always--uncomfortable things!
He would not let her help him get the supper, and with a subtle
perception of the irritation which he was at such pains to conceal, she
forbore to press the point, and went, instead, and sat in the doorway,
looking dreamily across the prairie.
Stanwood noted her choice of a seat, with a curious mixture of jealousy
and satisfaction. He should be obliged either to give up his seat, or to
share it for awhile; but then it was gratifying to know that the girl
had a heart for that view.
And the girl sat there wondering vaguely why she was not homesick.
Everything had been different from her anticipations. No one to meet her
at Springtown; no letter, no message at the hotel. She had had some
difficulty in learning how to reach Cameron City, and when, at last, she
had found herself in the forlorn little prairie train, steaming eastward
across the strange yellow expanse, unbroken by the smallest landmark,
she had been assailed by strange doubts and questionings. At Cameron
City, again, no longed-for, familiar face had appeared among the
loungers at the station, and the situation and her part in it seemed
most uncomfortable. When, however, she had made known her identity, and
word was passed that this was "Jake Stanwood's gal," there were prompt
offers of help, and she had soon secured the services of Cy Willows and
his "team."
As she sat in the doorway, watching the glowing light, the sun dropped
behind the Peak. She remembered how Cy had said he "hadn't never heard
Jake Stanwood speak of havin' a gal of his own." The shadow of the great
mountain had fallen upon the plain, and a chill, half imaginary, half
real, possessed itself of her. Was she homesick after all? She stood up
and stepped out upon the prairie, which had never yielded an inch of
space before the cabin door. Off to the southward was a field of
half-grown alfalfa that had taken on a weird, uncanny green in the first
sunless light. She looked across to the remote prairie, and there, on
the far horizon, the sunlight still shone, a golden circlet. No. She was
not homesick; anything but that! She had been homesick almost ever since
she could remember, but now she was in her father's house and everything
must be well.
When Stanwood came to look for her he found her surrounded by the
assiduous collies, examining with much interest the tall, ungainly
windmill, with its broad wooden flaps.
On the whole, their first evening together was a pleasant one. Stanwood
listened with amused appreciation to the account of her journey. She
would be a credit to his name, he thought, out there in the old familiar
world which he should never see again.
He had relinquished to her the seat on the door-step, and himself sat on
a saw-horse outside the door, where the lamp-light struck his face. Her
head and figure presented themselves to him as a silhouette, and somehow
that suited him better than to see her features distinctly; it seemed to
keep their relation back where it had always been, a sort of impersonal
outline.
Elizabeth, for her part, thought that, for all his shabby clothes and
thin, sunburnt face, her father was more manifestly a gentleman than any
man she had ever seen.
She learned several things in the course of that conversation. She found
that when she touched upon her reasons for coming to him, her feeling
that they were only two and that they ought to be together, his eyes
wandered and he looked bored; when she spoke of her mother he seemed
uncomfortable.
Was she like her mother? No, he said, she was not in the least like her
mother; he did not see that she took after anybody in particular. Then,
as if to escape the subject, was her Uncle Nicholas as rabid a
teetotaller as ever?
He liked best to hear about her school days and of the gay doings of the
past year, her first year of "society."
"And you don't like society?" he asked at last, with a quizzical glance
at her pretty profile. She had turned her eyes from the contemplation of
his face, and seemed to be conjuring up interesting visions out of the
darkness.
"Yes, I do!" she said with decision.
"You won't get much society out here," he remarked, and his spirits
rose again. Of course she would be bored to death without it.
"I like some things better than society," she replied.
"For instance?"
She turned her face full upon him, and boldly said, "You."
"The deuce you do!" he cried, and was instantly conscious that it was
the second time that he had forgotten himself.
A little crinkle appeared in the silhouette of a cheek, and she said, "I
do like to hear you say 'the deuce.' I don't believe Uncle Nicholas ever
said 'the deuce' in his life."
"Nick was always a bore," Stanwood rejoined, more pleased with the
implied disparagement of his pet aversion than with the very out-spoken
compliment to himself.
"I think Uncle Nicholas has done his duty by me," Elizabeth remarked
demurely, "but I am glad he has got through. I came of age last Monday,
the day I started for Colorado."
"When did you decide to come?"
"About five years ago. I always meant to start on the 7th of June of
this year."
"You make your plans a long way ahead. What is the next step on the
program?"
"I haven't the least idea."
"For such a very decided young lady, isn't that rather odd?"
"There are some things one can't decide all by one's self."
"Such as?"
"The next step."
"Perhaps you will find it easier after a week or two of ranching."
"You don't think I am going to like ranching?"
"Hardly."
"Don't you like it?"
"Oh, I'm an old man, with my life behind me."
The lamp-light on his face was stronger than he was aware; Elizabeth saw
a good deal in it which he was not in the habit of displaying to his
fellow-creatures. She stooped, and patted one of the collies, and told
him she thought she really ought to go to bed; upon which Stanwood rose
with alacrity, and conducted her to the museum, which had been turned
into a very habitable sleeping-room.
Having closed the door upon his latest "curiosity," Stanwood proceeded
to perform a solemn rite in the light of the stars. He took his demijohn
of old rye, and, followed by the six collies, he carried it out a few
rods back of the cabin, where he gravely emptied its contents upon the
sandy soil. At the first remonstrating gulp of the demijohn, which
seemed to be doing its best to arrest the flow, a strong penetrating
aroma assailed his nostrils, but he never flinched. Great as his
confidence was in his own supremacy in his peculiarly intimate relations
with old rye, he did not wish to "take any chances" with himself.
The dogs stood around in an admiring circle, and sniffed perplexedly at
the strange libation which was clearly not intended for their kind. Did
they realize that it was poured before the altar of parental devotion?
They stood there wagging their tails with great vigor, and never taking
their eyes off their master's countenance. Perhaps they appreciated the
odd, half-deprecating, half-satirical expression of the face they knew
so well. It would have been a pity if somebody had not done so. It is to
be feared, however, that the remark with which Stanwood finally turned
away from the odorous pool and walked toward the house was beyond the
comprehension of the canine intellect. To himself, at least, the
remorseful pang was very real with which he said, half aloud, "Pity to
waste good liquor like that! Some poor wretch might have enjoyed it."
The morning following his visitor's arrival, the two drove together in
the rattling old ranch wagon to Cameron City. Elizabeth was enchanted
with the ingenious introduction of odd bits of rope into the harness, by
means of which the whole establishment was kept from falling apart. She
thought the gait of the lazy old nag the most amusing exhibition
possible, and as for the erratic jolts and groans of the wagon, it
struck her that this was a new form of exercise, the pleasurable
excitement and unexpectedness of which surpassed all former experiences.
At Cameron City she made purchase of a saddle-horse, a very well-made
bronco with dramatic possibilities in his eye.
"I don't know where you will get a sidesaddle," Stanwood had demurred
when the purchase was first proposed.
"A sidesaddle? I have it in my trunk."
"You don't say so! I should think it would jam your bonnets."
"Oh, I packed it with my ranch outfit."
So they jogged and rattled over to Cameron City, where Elizabeth had
made the acquisition, not only of a saddle-horse, but of two or three
most interesting new acquaintances.
"I do like the people so much, papa," she declared as they drove out of
town, having left the new horse to be shod.
"You don't mind their calling you 'Jake Stanwood's gal'?"
"No, indeed! I think it's perfectly lovely!"
"It cannot but be gratifying to me," Stanwood remarked, in the
half-satirical tone he found easiest in conversation with this near
relative; "in fact, I may say it _is_ gratifying to me, to find that the
impression is mutually favorable. Halstead, the ruffianly looking
sheep-raiser who called you 'Madam,' confided to me that you were the
first woman he had ever met who knew the difference between a horse and
a cow; and Simmons, the light-haired man who looks like a deacon, but
who is probably the worst thief in four counties, told me I ought to be
proud of 'that gal'!"
"Oh, papa, what gorgeous compliments! Don't you want a swap?"
"A what?"
"A swap. That's what we call it when we pay back one compliment with
another."
He turned and looked at her with an amused approval which was almost
paternal.
"It is most refreshing," he said, "to have the vocabulary of the effete
West enlivened with these breezy expressions from the growing East."
"But, papa, you must really like slang, now really! Uncle Nicholas could
never tolerate it."
"There you strike a chord! I desire you to speak nothing but slang if
Nick objects."
Agreeable badinage had always been a favorite pastime with Jacob
Stanwood. If Elizabeth had but guessed it, a taste of it was worth more
to him than all the filial devotion she held in reserve.
"And now for the swap," she said. "You are not modest, I hope?"
"Heaven forbid!"
"Well, then! Miss Hunniman--you remember Miss Hunniman? She used to make
mama's dresses, and now she makes mine. She told me only a year ago that
whenever she read about Sir Galahad or the Chevalier Bayard or Richard
the Lion-hearted, she always thought of you; which was very
inconvenient, because it made her mix them up, and she never could
remember which of them went to the Crusades and which of them did not!"
Anything in the nature of a reminiscence was sure to jar upon Stanwood.
He preferred to consider the charming young person beside him as an
agreeable episode; he half resented any reminder of the permanence of
their relation. Therefore, in response to this little confidence, which
caused the quaint figure of Miss Hunniman to present itself with a
hundred small, thronging associations of the past, he only remarked
drily:
"I suppose you know that if you stay out here any length of time you
will spoil your complexion."
Elizabeth was impressionable enough to feel the full significance of
such hints and side-thrusts as were cautiously administered to her. She
was quite aware that she and her father were totally at odds on the main
point at issue, that he had as yet no intention of sharing his solitude
with her for any length of time. As the days went by she perceived
something else. She was not long in discovering that he was extremely
poor, and she became aware in some indefinable wise that he held
existence very cheap. Had her penetration been guided by a form of
experience which she happily lacked, she might have suspected still
another factor in the situation which had an unacknowledged influence
upon Stanwood's attitude.
Meanwhile their relation continued to be a friendly one. They were, in
fact, peculiarly congenial, and they could not well live together
without discovering it.