FIVE months brought all that Stillwell had dreamed of, and so many more
changes and improvements and innovations that it was as if a magic touch
had transformed the old ranch. Madeline and Alfred and Florence had
talked over a fitting name, and had decided on one chosen by Madeline.
But this instance was the only one in the course of developments in
which Madeline’s wishes were not compiled with. The cowboys named the
new ranch “Her Majesty’s Rancho.” Stillwell said the names cowboys
bestowed were felicitous, and as unchangeable as the everlasting hills;
Florence went over to the enemy; and Alfred, laughing at Madeline’s
protest, declared the cowboys had elected her queen of the ranges, and
that there was no help for it. So the name stood “Her Majesty’s Rancho.”
The April sun shone down upon a slow-rising green knoll that nestled in
the lee of the foothills, and seemed to center bright rays upon the long
ranch-house, which gleamed snow-white from the level summit. The grounds
around the house bore no semblance to Eastern lawns or parks; there had
been no landscape-gardening; Stillwell had just brought water and grass
and flowers and plants to the knoll-top, and there had left them, as it
were, to follow nature. His idea may have been crude, but the result
was beautiful. Under that hot sun and balmy air, with cool water daily
soaking into the rich soil, a green covering sprang into life, and
everywhere upon it, as if by magic, many colored flowers rose in the
sweet air. Pale wild flowers, lavender daisies, fragile bluebells, white
four-petaled lilies like Eastern mayflowers, and golden poppies, deep
sunset gold, color of the West, bloomed in happy confusion. California
roses, crimson as blood, nodded heavy heads and trembled with the weight
of bees. Low down in bare places, isolated, open to the full power of
the sun, blazed the vermilion and magenta blossoms of cactus plants.
Green slopes led all the way down to where new adobe barns and sheds had
been erected, and wide corrals stretched high-barred fences down to the
great squares of alfalfa gently inclining to the gray of the valley. The
bottom of a dammed-up hollow shone brightly with its slowly increasing
acreage of water, upon which thousands of migratory wildfowl whirred and
splashed and squawked, as if reluctant to leave this cool, wet surprise
so new in the long desert journey to the northland. Quarters for the
cowboys—comfortable, roomy adobe houses that not even the lamest cowboy
dared describe as crampy bunks—stood in a row upon a long bench of
ground above the lake. And down to the edge of the valley the cluster of
Mexican habitations and the little church showed the touch of the same
renewing hand.
All that had been left of the old Spanish house which had been
Stillwell’s home for so long was the bare, massive structure, and
some of this had been cut away for new doors and windows. Every modern
convenience, even to hot and cold running water and acetylene light,
had been installed; and the whole interior painted and carpentered and
furnished. The ideal sought had not been luxury, but comfort. Every door
into the patio looked out upon dark, rich grass and sweet-faced flowers,
and every window looked down the green slopes.
Madeline’s rooms occupied the west end of the building and comprised
four in number, all opening out upon the long porch. There was a
small room for her maid, another which she used as an office, then her
sleeping-apartment; and, lastly, the great light chamber which she had
liked so well upon first sight, and which now, simply yet beautifully
furnished and containing her favorite books and pictures, she had come
to love as she had never loved any room at home. In the morning the
fragrant, balmy air blew the white curtains of the open windows; at
noon the drowsy, sultry quiet seemed to creep in for the siesta that was
characteristic of the country; in the afternoon the westering sun peeped
under the porch roof and painted the walls with gold bars that slowly
changed to red.
Madeline Hammond cherished a fancy that the transformation she had
wrought in the old Spanish house and in the people with whom she had
surrounded herself, great as that transformation had been, was as
nothing compared to the one wrought in herself. She had found an object
in life. She was busy, she worked with her hands as well as mind, yet
she seemed to have more time to read and think and study and idle
and dream than ever before. She had seen her brother through his
difficulties, on the road to all the success and prosperity that he
cared for. Madeline had been a conscientious student of ranching and an
apt pupil of Stillwell. The old cattleman, in his simplicity, gave her
the place in his heart that was meant for the daughter he had never had.
His pride in her, Madeline thought, was beyond reason or belief or
words to tell. Under his guidance, sometimes accompanied by Alfred and
Florence, Madeline had ridden the ranges and had studied the life and
work of the cowboys. She had camped on the open range, slept under the
blinking stars, ridden forty miles a day in the face of dust and wind.
She had taken two wonderful trips down into the desert—one trip to
Chiricahua, and from there across the waste of sand and rock and alkali
and cactus to the Mexican borderline; and the other through the Aravaipa
Valley, with its deep, red-walled canyons and wild fastnesses.
This breaking-in, this training into Western ways, though she had been
a so-called outdoor girl, had required great effort and severe pain; but
the education, now past its grades, had become a labor of love. She
had perfect health, abounding spirits. She was so active hat she had to
train herself into taking the midday siesta, a custom of the country
and imperative during the hot summer months. Sometimes she looked in
her mirror and laughed with sheer joy at sight of the lithe, audacious,
brown-faced, flashing-eyed creature reflected there. It was not so much
joy in her beauty as sheer joy of life. Eastern critics had been wont to
call her beautiful in those days when she had been pale and slender and
proud and cold. She laughed. If they could only see her now! From the
tip of her golden head to her feet she was alive, pulsating, on fire.
Sometimes she thought of her parents, sister, friends, of how they had
persistently refused to believe she could or would stay in the West.
They were always asking her to come home. And when she wrote, which was
dutifully often, the last thing under the sun that she was likely to
mention was the change in her. She wrote that she would return to her
old home some time, of course, for a visit; and letters such as this
brought returns that amused Madeline, sometimes saddened her. She meant
to go back East for a while, and after that once or twice every year.
But the initiative was a difficult step from which she shrank. Once
home, she would have to make explanations, and these would not be
understood. Her father’s business had been such that he could not leave
it for the time required for a Western trip, or else, according to his
letter, he would have come for her. Mrs. Hammond could not have been
driven to cross the Hudson River; her un-American idea of the wilderness
westward was that Indians still chased buffalo on the outskirts of
Chicago. Madeline’s sister Helen had long been eager to come, as much
from curiosity, Madeline thought, as from sisterly regard. And at length
Madeline concluded that the proof of her breaking permanent ties might
better be seen by visiting relatives and friends before she went back
East. With that in mind she invited Helen to visit her during the
summer, and bring as many friends as she liked.
* * *
No slight task indeed was it to oversee the many business details of Her
Majesty’s Rancho and to keep a record of them. Madeline found the course
of business training upon which her father had insisted to be invaluable
to her now. It helped her to assimilate and arrange the practical
details of cattle-raising as put forth by the blunt Stillwell. She split
up the great stock of cattle into different herds, and when any of these
were out running upon the open range she had them closely watched. Part
of the time each herd was kept in an inclosed range, fed and watered,
and carefully handled by a big force of cowboys. She employed three
cowboy scouts whose sole duty was to ride the ranges searching for
stray, sick, or crippled cattle or motherless calves, and to bring these
in to be treated and nursed. There were two cowboys whose business was
to master a pack of Russian stag-hounds and to hunt down the coyotes,
wolves, and lions that preyed upon the herds. The better and tamer
milch cows were separated from the ranging herds and kept in a pasture
adjoining the dairy. All branding was done in corrals, and calves were
weaned from mother-cows at the proper time to benefit both. The old
method of branding and classing, that had so shocked Madeline, had been
abandoned, and one had been inaugurated whereby cattle and cowboys and
horses were spared brutality and injury.
Madeline established an extensive vegetable farm, and she planted
orchards. The climate was superior to that of California, and, with
abundant water, trees and plants and gardens flourished and bloomed in
a way wonderful to behold. It was with ever-increasing pleasure that
Madeline walked through acres of ground once bare, now green and bright
and fragrant. There were poultry-yards and pig-pens and marshy quarters
for ducks and geese. Here in the farming section of the ranch Madeline
found employment for the little colony of Mexicans. Their lives had been
as hard and barren as the dry valley where they had lived. But as the
valley had been transformed by the soft, rich touch of water, so their
lives had been transformed by help and sympathy and work. The children
were wretched no more, and many that had been blind could now see, and
Madeline had become to them a new and blessed virgin.
Madeline looked abroad over these lands and likened the change in them
and those who lived by them to the change in her heart. It may have
been fancy, but the sun seemed to be brighter, the sky bluer, the wind
sweeter. Certain it was that the deep green of grass and garden was not
fancy, nor the white and pink of blossom, nor the blaze and perfume of
flower, nor the sheen of lake and the fluttering of new-born leaves.
Where there had been monotonous gray there was now vivid and changing
color. Formerly there had been silence both day and night; now during
the sunny hours there was music. The whistle of prancing stallions
pealed in from the grassy ridges. Innumerable birds had come and, like
the northward-journeying ducks, they had tarried to stay. The song
of meadow-lark and blackbird and robin, familiar to Madeline from
childhood, mingled with the new and strange heart-throbbing song
of mocking-bird and the piercing blast of the desert eagle and the
melancholy moan of turtle-dove.
*****
One April morning Madeline sat in her office wrestling with a problem.
She had problems to solve every day. The majority of these were
concerned with the management of twenty-seven incomprehensible cowboys.
This particular problem involved Ambrose Mills, who had eloped with her
French maid, Christine.
Stillwell faced Madeline with a smile almost as huge as his bulk.
“Wal, Miss Majesty, we ketched them; but not before Padre Marcos had
married them. All thet speedin’ in the autoomoobile was jest a-scarin’
of me to death fer nothin’. I tell you Link Stevens is crazy about
runnin’ thet car. Link never hed no sense even with a hoss. He ain’t
afraid of the devil hisself. If my hair hedn’t been white it ’d be white
now. No more rides in thet thing fer me! Wal, we ketched Ambrose an’
the girl too late. But we fetched them back, an’ they’re out there now,
spoonin’, sure oblivious to their shameless conduct.”
“Stillwell, what shall I say to Ambrose? How shall I punish him? He has
done wrong to deceive me. I never was so surprised in my life. Christine
did not seem to care any more for Ambrose than for any of the other
cowboys. What does my authority amount to? I must do something.
Stillwell, you must help me.”
Whenever Madeline fell into a quandary she had to call upon the
old cattleman. No man ever held a position with greater pride than
Stillwell, but he had been put to tests that steeped him in humility.
Here he scratched his head in great perplexity.
“Dog-gone the luck! What’s this elopin’ bizness to do with
cattle-raisin’? I don’t know nothin’ but cattle. Miss Majesty, it’s
amazin’ strange what these cowboys hev come to. I never seen no cowboys
like these we’ve got hyar now. I don’t know them any more. They dress
swell an’ read books, an’ some of them hev actooly stopped cussin’ an’
drinkin’. I ain’t sayin’ all this is against them. Why, now, they’re
jest the finest bunch of cow-punchers I ever seen or dreamed of. But
managin’ them now is beyond me. When cowboys begin to play thet game
gol-lof an’ run off with French maids I reckon Bill Stillwell has got to
resign.”
“Stillwell! Oh, you will not leave me? What in the world would I do?”
exclaimed Madeline, in great anxiety.
“Wal, I sure won’t leave you, Miss Majesty. No, I never’ll do thet. I’ll
run the cattle bizness fer you an’ see after the hosses an’ other stock.
But I’ve got to hev a foreman who can handle this amazin’ strange bunch
of cowboys.”
“You’ve tried half a dozen foremen. Try more until you find the man who
meets your requirements,” said Madeline. “Never mind that now. Tell me
how to impress Ambrose—to make him an example, so to speak. I must have
another maid. And I do not want a new one carried off in this summary
manner.”
“Wal, if you fetch pretty maids out hyar you can’t expect nothin’ else.
Why, thet black-eyed little French girl, with her white skin an’ pretty
airs an’ smiles an’ shrugs, she had the cowboys crazy. It’ll be wuss
with the next one.”
“Oh dear!” sighed Madeline.
“An’ as fer impressin’ Ambrose, I reckon I can tell you how to do thet.
Jest give it to him good an’ say you’re goin’ to fire him. That’ll fix
Ambrose, an’ mebbe scare the other boys fer a spell.”
“Very well, Stillwell, bring Ambrose in to see me, and tell Christine to
wait in my room.”
It was a handsome debonair, bright-eyed cowboy that came tramping
into Madeline’s presence. His accustomed shyness and awkwardness had
disappeared in an excited manner. He was a happy boy. He looked straight
into Madeline’s face as if he expected her to wish him joy. And Madeline
actually found that expression trembling to her lips. She held it back
until she could be severe. But Madeline feared she would fail of much
severity. Something warm and sweet, like a fragrance, had entered the
room with Ambrose.
“Ambrose, what have you done?” she asked.
“Miss Hammond, I’ve been and gone and got married,” replied Ambrose, his
words tumbling over one another. His eyes snapped, and there was a kind
of glow upon his clean-shaven brown cheek. “I’ve stole a march on the
other boys. There was Frank Slade pushin’ me close, and I was havin’
some runnin’ to keep Jim Bell back in my dust. Even old man Nels made
eyes at Christine! So I wasn’t goin’ to take any chances. I just packed
her off to El Cajon and married her.”
“Oh, so I heard,” said Madeline, slowly, as she watched him. “Ambrose,
do you—love her?”
He reddened under her clear gaze, dropped his head, and fumbled with
his new sombrero, and there was a catch in his breath. Madeline saw
his powerful brown hand tremble. It affected her strangely that this
stalwart cowboy, who could rope and throw and tie a wild steer in less
than one minute, should tremble at a mere question. Suddenly he raised
his head, and at the beautiful blase of his eyes Madeline turned her own
away.
“Yes, Miss Hammond, I love her,” he said. “I think I love her in the
way you’re askin’ about. I know the first time I saw her I thought how
wonderful it’d be to have a girl like that for my wife. It’s all been
so strange—her comin’ an’ how she made me feel. Sure I never knew many
girls, and I haven’t seen any girls at all for years. But when she came!
A girl makes a wonderful difference in a man’s feelin’s and thoughts.
I guess I never had any before. Leastways, none like I have now.
My—it—well, I guess I have a little understandin’ now of Padre
Marcos’s blessin’.”
“Ambrose, have you nothing to say to me?” asked Madeline.
“I’m sure sorry I didn’t have time to tell you. But I was in some
hurry.”
“What did you intend to do? Where were you going when Stillwell found
you?”
“We’d just been married. I hadn’t thought of anything after that.
Suppose I’d have rustled back to my job. I’ll sure have to work now and
save my money.”
“Oh, well, Ambrose, I am glad you realize your responsibilities. Do you
earn enough—is your pay sufficient to keep a wife?”
“Sure it is! Why, Miss Hammond, I never before earned half the salary
I’m gettin’ now. It’s some fine to work for you. I’m goin’ to fire the
boys out of my bunk-house and fix it up for Christine and me. Say, won’t
they be jealous?”
“Ambrose, I—I congratulate you. I wish you joy,” said Madeline. “I—I
shall make Christine a little wedding-present. I want to talk to her for
a few moments. You may go now.”
It would have been impossible for Madeline to say one severe word
to that happy cowboy. She experienced difficulty in hiding her own
happiness at the turn of events. Curiosity and interest mingled with her
pleasure when she called to Christine.
“Mrs. Ambrose Mills, please come in.”
No sound came from the other room.
“I should like very much to see the bride,” went on Madeline.