With a little sigh of relief and pleasure, Pen laid aside some garments,
on which she had been steadily and surreptitiously working, and sought
Jo.
"Come down under cover of one of the hills," she urged, "and I will show
you what my part in the day's work will be. Special exhibition. Admittance
free, but no other spectators allowed."
Half an hour later Jo was gazing at her as one gazes at some marvelous
performer, but his awe and admiration were expressed in a simple but
effective phrase:
"Oh, baby, but you can put it over them all!"
That afternoon when the Kingdon household came down to occupy the row of
raised seats erected in the "field," Pen was missing. Her absence was a
mystery until the following typed programs for the day were handed out:
OUTLAW HORSE SHOW
TOP HILL PARK
------
JO GARY, Champion Rider of Top Hill, will
ride TURN TURTLE and PINCH HITTER.
SLEEPY SANDY will ride BATTLESHIP GRAY and
BABY DOLL.
JAKEY FOURR will ride PICKLED PETE and PIKER.
GENE DOSSEY will ride HIAWATHA and WHIZZ.
------
MISS PENNY ANTE
(Miss Penelope Lamont)
Will ride _anything brought into the ring_!
------
GREAT EXHIBITION OF ROUGH RIDING by the most
notorious riders of the West. Only the most
unmanageable animals will be ridden.
Kingdon's eye-glasses came off with a sense of shock.
"This will never do, Margaret!" he exclaimed. "Those crazy boys have no
sense. They'll bring out some of those wild horses, and that meek-looking,
little daredevil friend of Kurt's will call any bluff. She mustn't be
allowed to ride."
His wife restrained him as he started away.
"I feel confident that she can do--anything. She told me she could ride."
"Well," he replied resignedly, "I always have left everything regarding
girls to your judgment, so I suppose I must now, but I am surprised at
you."
The children were thrown into a state of excitement on deciphering Pen's
part in the coming feats.
A bugle sounded.
Into the ring rode the four slim, young top riders of the ranch force,
chaparajos and sombreros being much in evidence. They gave the usual
stunts in the typical Western way on a track tramped as hard as asphalt,
the tattoo of hoofs making the hard earth ring in the soundless
atmosphere. Their feats, singly and together, were marvelous, but there
was lacking to the onlookers the charm of novelty, as they had long been
accustomed to these and similar exhibitions of horsemanship.
Everyone's heart beat a little faster with expectancy, therefore, when
there came another blare of the trumpet. Into the ring came "Miss Penny
Ante," slim and straight as a boy scout, clad in puttees, dark blue
breeches and an olive-drab blouse.
A sleek, shy colt was suddenly inducted into the scene of action. Then
there began a frisky game of maneuvers. The little, would-be rider proved
as wary and nimble as the colt on which she finally succeeded in shooting
a bridle. Another round of come and go, and one leg went over the slender
neck, and then down the glossy back slid the lithe figure. With a
wondering, protesting neigh, the colt tried all the tactics known to his
species, but they were of no avail, and after circling and re-circling the
ring, Pen calmly relinquished him and awaited the next offer.
A wild-eyed mustang was the victim. As soon as she was mounted, he rose
high on his hind feet but came down like a lamb and ended in spinning like
a top around the ring.
A general protest went up when a demoniacal-looking buckskin was
produced.
"They are horse-mad!" exclaimed Kingdon. "Margaret, this is going to stop
right here."
"Louis," she replied earnestly, "this is only horse-play to Pen. No, I am
not punning. I didn't know she was going to make this exhibition, but some
way I feel that she can easily live up to the promises in the program."
With a plunge the buckskin went straight into mid-air and came down hard.
Then at full speed amid a whirling of dust, he tried all his tricks, but
always the little figure held her position, easily triumphant, and finally
the hitherto unmountable animal again came trembling to earth and
obediently followed his rider's will.
"You've won!" cried the cowboys.
"Now, bring me a horse, a real saddle horse--the kind you give a kingdom
for!" she demanded. "I'd like to _ride_ a bit, if you don't mind."
They brought her a beautiful thoroughbred. She rode around the ring a few
times, and then, leaping the fence to the inclosure, was away and over the
hills, her blood throbbing, her heart pounding as she felt the soft,
southwest wind in her face, the siren song of freedom ringing in her ears.
The divine sweetness of the mountain air was in her nostrils. She was
recalled from her state of rhapsody by the sound of pounding hoofs behind
her. She half turned in her saddle, expecting to see Jo. She didn't need
the commanding-toned "Wait!" to rein in her horse.
There was an inscrutable look in the blazing eyes of the approaching
horseman, a compelling force in his broad shoulders as he rode up to her.
"Where are you going?" he demanded.
"Nowhere. Just riding," she replied.
Her uplifted face was vivid with joy, her eyes sparkling. Suddenly a wave
of color suffused her cheeks.
"I wasn't running away!" she declared, suppressing a chuckle. "Honest, I
wasn't. It's field day. I've been doing stunts and I just ached for a
real, regular ride. It's so grand to be astride a horse and feel the world
is yours! When did you come home?"
"I haven't come home. I am on my way to Fowler's to subpoena a witness,
and I rode this way meaning to stop but a moment. I came over the big hill
just as you rode into the ring."
She stole a look at his impassive face.
"And you saw the sports?"
"Yes; and rode on after you--"
"Because you feared your prisoner might be taking French leave? No; this
is the end of the rainbow to me. I have no desire to leave--at present."
They were riding slowly on.
"Where did you learn to ride?"
"I don't remember; it was so long ago."
"_That_ was circus riding."
"It did look like it," she said deprecatingly.
"If you can ride like that, why did you leave the circus for the life--"
"Of a crook?" she finished. "Suppose I stole a horse and sold it and had
to vamoose. Even circus managers don't employ thieves."
"Who gave you permission to ride to-day?" he demanded.
She pulled from the pocket of her blouse a program and handed it to him.
"You see I was featured," she explained modestly.
He read it with a frown expressive of displeasure.
"Did Mrs. Kingdon know you were going to do this?"
"No one but one of the men knew."
"How did you come to meet the men?"
"The children introduced me to one of them and I met the others at the
dance. I never knew what dancing really meant until then. I've learned to
play a very gamey game, too. Craps."
With a jerk Kurt brought his horse to a halt and reaching over caught her
bridle as she was about to spur her horse onward.
"Did you tell Mrs. Kingdon everything?" he asked sternly.
"Everything I could remember," she replied demurely. "Far more than I told
you."
"What did she say?"
"She is going to talk to you and ask you to leave the entire matter in her
hands."
He broke the short silence that followed.
"Dancing, craps and bronco-breaking are not what I brought you here for."
"But I've done lots of other things, too. Sewed three days straight,
learned how to make salads, heard the children's lessons, picked flowers
and getting wise to a home atmosphere every minute. You won't send me
away?"
He was scowling at the program again.
"Why are you called Penny Ante?"
"You object to all of my names. But this one was Betty's fault. She
introduced me as 'Aunt Penny,' and of course they put it backward."
"Who do they think you are?"
"Your 'lady friend' here for a visit," she answered with the little giggle
that always offended him. Then, appeasingly: "Mrs. Kingdon said it would
be better if only you and she knew who I am and why I am here at the
ranch."
"Go back to the house," he directed. "I'll be home in a few days."
Obediently she turned her horse and he rode in the opposite direction.
"Kurt--Mr. Walters!" she called entreatingly.
He turned in his saddle and waited until she rode back to him.
"There is something I want to tell you," she said, her eyes downcast, a
faint note of exultation in her voice. "I haven't taken a thing--or tried
to--or wanted to--since I've been here, and I've had lots of chances."
Receiving no reply, she looked up pleadingly, and was startled at the
transformation in his eyes, which were usually narrow, cold and of
steel-gray shade, but now were dark, shining and full of infinite pity as
they looked down into hers.
"I am glad to hear it," he said gently. "You know that was why I brought
you here. Now you must do more for me. You mustn't mingle with the men, or
repeat to-day's program. I want you to be like her--a house-woman.
Good-bye--until I come home."
He rode swiftly away, and she laughed softly to herself, stopping
suddenly.
"It isn't so funny after all; it's really pathetic. But--a house-woman! Ye
Gods! That is the last thing I want to be--or could be. It's all well for
a novelty, but for steady diet--oh, me! If Hebby could have heard the law
laid down to me, he'd be overcome with glee. Poor old Heb! I bet he is
still frothing at the mouth because I gave him such a neat slip. I seem,
however, to have only succeeded in changing keepers."
She rode on, her conscience smiting her now and then when she recalled the
look in Kurt's eyes.
"I don't deserve pity from him or anyone," she thought a little sadly.
She made no mention at Top Hill of having met the foreman. Notwithstanding
his orders, for three days she revelled in the companionship of Jo and the
men.
"We must harvest all the hay we can," she told him, "while Kind Kurt is
away."
On the evening of the third day, she found herself watching the hill road
from town.
"I feel like Sister Anne," she thought. "It's odd, why I am wanting him to
return, for when he does, my fun will be nipped in the bud. It may be the
feeling of a dog for its master that I have acquired for my sheriff man.
Jo will be going soon to Westcott's. I think I will play up to Kind Kurt
and then tell him what I revealed to Mrs. Kingdon. Wow!"
She turned from the window to hear the message Kingdon had just received
from the telegraph office in town. An old-time friend had asked him to
join a party of men at a ranch a hundred miles distant. His wife urged him
to follow his apparent inclination.
"It'll do you good, Louis, to see more of your kind again."
"I wouldn't consider it if you didn't have such good company," he said,
with a whimsical smile in Pen's direction.
The following morning, Jo drove Mrs. Kingdon, Pen and the children to town
to see Kingdon off. When his train had pulled out, they went to the
postoffice and Francis was sent in for the mail.
"A letter for you, mother," he said, running up to the car. "It's Aunt
Helen's writing."
An anxious look came into Margaret Kingdon's eyes as she read.
"Doris is ill, and my sister wants me to come to her," she explained to
Pen. "She is quite helpless in a sick room and Doris asks for me. There is
a train east in an hour and you can send my luggage on to me. I'll return
as soon as Doris is convalescent."
"I will do all I can to help with the children," promised Pen.
"I know you will. And Jo can stop at Mrs. Merlin's and take her to Top
Hill. She always presides in my absence. She is a good housekeeper and is
never disagreeable or officious."
"Jo says Mrs. Merlin shinnies on her own side," added Billy.
"Jo is right," replied his mother.
At the station Mrs. Kingdon drew Pen aside.
"You must tell Kurt, you know," she cautioned.
Pen looked plaintive, but the conductor's "all aboard" call ended the
conversation.
"We'll say our prayers and our lessons like mother told us," said Francis
as they motored home, "but of course we can't be too good all the time. I
am going to ride a horse, a real horse--not a pony."
"I am going to sit up late nights," declared Billy.
"And I shall wear your clothes and play I am a boy," Betty informed him.
"Well," thought Pen, "after all these Declarations of Independence, I feel
I must get in the forbidden fruit game, too. I know what I'll do. I'll not
tell Kurt--not right away, at least."
Half way to the ranch they stopped at Mrs. Merlin's cottage.
"She certainly looks the part of propriety to perfection," thought Pen, as
she surveyed the tall, angular, spectacled woman, who came to the car, and
whose grim features relaxed slightly after a keen glance at the young
girl.
"I'll have four children this time instead of three," she said.
"What would she think," reflected Pen, "if Kind Kurt should tell her what
kind of a child the fourth one is!"
Back at Top Hill, Pen packed the luggage to be expressed to Mrs. Kingdon,
and Jo made another trip to town, planning to go from there to
Westcott's.
At dinner time Kurt arrived, and Pen chuckled as she easily read his
dismay at the situation.
"He's foreseeing and dreading all sorts of terrible things I may do or am
capable of doing. Just because he is looking for trouble, I have no desire
to give it. I'll play a new role and show him what a tame, good little
girl I can be; maybe I'll like being one and it'll turn out to be a real
reform. It would be awfully odd if he found his pedalled ideal in The
Thief!"
She was conscious of his searching eyes upon her. She looked demurely
down. In a soft, subdued voice she read little stories to the children,
and when their bedtime hour came, she went upstairs with them.
Later she joined him on the library veranda where he was smoking his pipe,
for it was one of the few nights when it was warm enough for such
indulgence.
She went up to him unfalteringly.
"I have put myself on honor while Mrs. Kingdon is away," she said gravely.
"I will try hard to do as you want me to do, but it will be easier for me
if you will trust me."
Her eyes looked out so very straight, with none of the worldly wisdom he
had seen in them the day she had been transferred to his guardianship,
that he found himself incapable of harboring any further doubt of her
sincerity.
"I will," he said staunchly; "I will trust you as she does."
They sat together in the moonlight without further converse and in the
reposeful silence a mutual understanding was born.
Presently she went inside and played some old-time airs on the piano with
the caressing, lingering touch of those who play by ear.
"Where did you learn to play?" he asked wonderingly.
She looked up, slightly startled. She hadn't heard him come in and her
thoughts had been far away from Top Hill.
"I never did learn," she said, rising from the piano. "I play by ear. I
see it is late. I must go upstairs. Good night, Mr. Walters."
"Good night, Pen," he said kindly.
He returned to the porch and pipe and lost himself in a haze of
dreams--such dreams as had been wont to come to him in his younger days
when he had been a cow-puncher pure and simple. Gathered about a roaring
camp fire that lighted up the rough and boisterous faces of his
companions, he had seemed as one of them, but later when they had gone to
well-earned slumber and it had been his turn to guard the long lines of
cattle in the cool of the cottonwoods, he had used to gaze into the
mysteries of a desert moon slowly drifting through a cerulean sky and
dream a boy's dream of the woman who was to come to him.
As he grew older and came more into contact with the world, he was brought
to an overwhelming realization that the woman of his dreams did not exist.
The knowledge made an ache in his heart, but to-night he was again longing
with the primary instinct that would not be killed,--longing for the One.
Pen went to bed and to sleep. The next day she was a perfect model of a
young housewife. She helped the children with their little lessons, filled
all the vases, trained some vines, and then with some needlework went out
on the veranda. At the table she listened and responded interestedly to
Mrs. Merlin's bromidic remarks, was gentle with the children and most
flatteringly deferential to Kurt. Of her former banter and coquetry toward
him there was no trace. After the children had gone to bed, she played
cribbage with Mrs. Merlin while Kurt read the papers.
When she was undressing that night she examined her shoulders in the
mirror very closely.
"There should be little wings sprouting. I was never even make-believe
good before. The relapse will be a winner when it comes. If I could only
steady down to something like a normal life. But I never shall."
She was standing pensively by a rosebush the next morning feeling
appallingly weary of well-doing when Kurt in his riding clothes suddenly
appeared before her.
"Would you like to ride this morning?" he asked. "Work is slack just
now."
With a rush of joy she got into her boyish looking outfit and mounted the
horse he had chosen for her, a thoroughbred animal but one far different
from those she had tried out on field day. She was very careful not to try
to outride the foreman, or to perform any of her marvels of horsemanship.
They had a long exhilarating ride over the foothills, and she felt the
blood leaping again in her arteries at the turning from the comfortable
channels of house life into the lure of the open.
"I was never meant for indoors," she thought. "I think I can stand it up
here a while longer if he'll give me more of this exercise."
That night as they sat in the library alone, he lost his habitual
reticence and talked--through her guidance--of himself and his life.
"Does it satisfy you always," she asked. "Wouldn't you like the power of
ruling fates and fortunes in a city way?"
"No;" he replied, almost fiercely. "When a man has circled the herd and
risen in his stirrups to throw a lariat and watched through the night by
the light of camp fires, nothing else calls to him quite the same way. I
couldn't endure to live a bottled up life--the life of cities. Men of my
kind are branded; they may wander, but they always come back. After you
once get on intimate terms with the mountain and the blue overhead, other
things don't satisfy."
She drew him into further conversation regarding his former life,
responding briefly but with an undercurrent of interest that put him on
good terms with himself.
In the days that followed, these rides became frequent, and despite the
fact that they seldom spoke, they unconsciously grew into a closeness of
companionship which saved her from the ennui of unwonted domestic
environment. The intense vitality of the young foreman attracted her, and
she began to have a friendly sympathy for him, and even to feel a tranquil
satisfaction in his reposeful silence. At times she was sorely tempted to
show him the same little impish self she had portrayed on their first ride
up the trail, and sometimes her conscience would sting her that she had
failed to confide in him as Mrs. Kingdon had advised, but his gray eyes
looked out so very straight and with such calm kindliness--the gaze of a
man who has lived the simple life in the open--and with so little affinity
to the eyes of the world-wise, that she found herself incapable of
carrying out her intentions.
One night when the men had arranged to have another dance, Pen paid
unusual attention to her dress. She came downstairs, a slight little
figure in a soft, flower-sprigged, old-fashioned muslin (designed
originally for bedroom windows and donated by Mrs. Kingdon), her hair
softly brought to the crown of her head, with little curling rings about
her brow. A freshness like the first faint fragrance of young spring
seemed to hover about her. Kurt surveyed her with a look akin to
adoration. Then his eyes dropped.
"Don't dance with the boys to-night," he said abruptly.
"I must play the _ingenue_ part for which I am costumed," she thought.
"Mrs. Kingdon told me," she said gently, "that the boys had so few
opportunities for partners, I must divide my dances equally."
"There's a party of tourists--teachers--at Westcott's. I've asked them
over. The boys can dance with them."
"Well," she assented graciously, "I'll just dance with Betty and Francis
and Billy--"
"And me," he finished.
"Thank you. I didn't know that you danced."
In the dance hall she looked eagerly about, hoping that Jo might have been
invited, but she was disappointed.
"I am not dancing," she thought, when Kurt was guiding her over the floor.
"I am just being deliciously carried about. It's very restful, but not
exhilarating. Oh, Jo, where art thou? It was like drinking champagne to
dance with you, but I suppose continuous champagne is bad for one."
Later that night when she was taking off her dancing slippers her thoughts
were still of the man with whom she had danced so many times.
"He's kind and good and strong--a suppressed strength. He looks
passion-proof; but if he ever falls in love! And what a triumph for a
thief to capture an adamantine heart! But I don't want that kind--nor any
kind."
Down in the bunkhouse, Kurt was recalling the feel of her little hand that
had left a trail like fire upon his arm and had filled him with a
sensation of ecstasy. A new divine sweetness seemed born into the air. He
looked out of his window up into a star-flecked sky and renewed his old
vow of allegiance to The Woman.