Part 30 (1/2)
Well, of course, Mrs. Duke was very nice, and anyhow it was better to take them both than lose them both, and that preacher had a very set face in spite of his pallor. So Prince recovered his equanimity and devoted himself to enjoying the tumultuous evening on the street. He bought candy and canes and pennants until the girls sternly refused to carry another bit of rubbish. He bought David a crimson and gold silk handkerchief, and an Indian bracelet for Julia, and took the girls to ride on the merry-go-round, and was beside himself with joy.
Suppose his friends of the range did draw back as he pa.s.sed, and gaze after him in awe and envy. Suppose the more reckless ones did snicker like fools, nudging each other, lifting their hats with exaggerated courtesy,--he should worry. He had lived on the range for fourteen years and had never had such a chance before. Now he had it, he would hang on to it if it cost him every sheep he had on the mountains.
Wasn't Connie the smartest girl you ever saw, always saying funny, bright things, and--the way she stepped along like a G.o.ddess, and the way she smiled! Prince Ingram had forgotten that girls grew like that.
They returned to the hotel early and found David waiting on the porch as he had promised. He was plainly tired, and Carol said he must go to bed at once. They all rose and walked to the door, and then, very surprisingly, Connie thought she would like to sit a while on the quiet porch, from which every other one had gone to the carnival, and collect her thoughts. Carol frowned, and David smiled, but what could they do?
They had said they were tired and now they must go to bed perforce.
Prince looked after her, and looked at the door that had closed behind David and Carol, and rubbed his fingers thoughtfully under his collar,--and followed Connie back to the porch.
”Will it bother you if I sit here a while? I won't talk if you want to think.”
”It won't bother me a bit,” she a.s.sured him warmly. ”It is nice of you to keep me company. And I would rather talk than think.”
So he put her chair at the proper angle where the street lamp revealed her clear white features, and he sat as close beside her as he dared.
She did not know it, but his elbow was really on the arm of her chair instead of his own. He almost held his breath for fear a slight move would betray him. Wasn't she a wonderful girl? She turned sidewise in the chair, her head resting against the high back, and smiled at him.
”Now talk,” she said. ”Let us get acquainted. See if you can make me love the mountain ranges better than Chicago.”
He told her of the clean sweep of the wind around his little cottage among the pines on the side of the mountain, of the wild animals that sometimes prowled his way, of the shouting of the boys on the range in the dark night, the swaying of distant lanterns, the tinkle of sheep bells. He told her of his father, of the things that he himself had once planned to be and do. He told her of his friends: of Lily, his pal, so-called because he used a safety razor every morning of his life; of Whisker, the finest dog in Colorado; of Ruby, the ruddy brown horse that would follow him miles through the mountains and always find the master at the end of the trail. And he told her it was a lonely life. And it was. Prince Ingram had lived here fourteen years, with no more consciousness of being alone than the eagle perched solitary on the mountain crags, but quite suddenly he discovered that it was lonely, and somehow the discovery took the wonder from that free glad life, and made him long for the city's bright lights, where there were others,--not just cowboys, but regular men and women.
”Yes,” a.s.sented Connie rather abruptly, ”I suppose it would be nice to be in a crowd of women, laughing and dancing and singing. I suppose you do miss it.”
”That was not what I meant,” said Prince slowly. ”I don't care for a crowd of them. Not many. One is enough.” He was appalled at his own audacity, and despised himself for his cowardice, for why didn't he look this white fine girl of the city in the eyes and say:
”Yes, one,--and you are it.”
CHAPTER XXI
ADVENTURING
If Connie truly was in pursuit of literary material, she was indefatigable in the quest. But sometimes Carol doubted if it was altogether literary material she was after. And David was very much concerned,--what would dignified Father Starr, District Superintendent, say to his youngest daughter, Connie the literary, Connie the proud, Connie the high, the fine, the perfect, delving so a.s.siduously into the mysteries of range life as typified in big, brown, rugged Prince Ingram?
To be sure, Prince had risen beyond the cowboy stage and was now a ”stock man,” a power on the ranges, a man of money, of influence. But David felt responsible.
Yet no one could be responsible for Connie. Father Starr himself could not. If she looked at one serenely and said, ”I need to do this,” the rankest foolishness a.s.sumed the proportions of dire necessity. So what could David, sick and weak, do in the face of the manifestly impossible?
Carol scolded her. And Connie laughed. David offered brotherly suggestions. And Connie laughed again. Julia said Prince was a darling big grandpa, and Connie kissed her.
The Frontier Days pa.s.sed on to their uproarious conclusion. Connie saw everything, heard everything and took copious notes. She was going to start her book. She had made the acquaintance of some of the cowgirls, and she studied them with a pa.s.sionate eagerness that English literature in the abstract had never aroused in her gentle breast.
Then she became argumentative. She contended that the beautiful lawn at the Bijou was productive of strength for David, rest for Carol, amus.e.m.e.nt for Julia, and literary material for her. Therefore, why not linger after the noisy crowd had gone,--just idling on the long porches, strolling under the great trees? And because Connie had a convincing way about her, it was unanimously agreed that the Bijou lawn could do everything she claimed for it, and by all means they ought to tarry a week.
It was all settled before David and Carol learned that Prince Ingram was tired of Frontier Days and had decided not to go on to Sterling, but thought he too should linger, gathering up something worth while in Fort Morgan. Carol looked at Connie reproachfully, but the little baby sister was as imperturbable as ever.
Prince himself was all right. Carol liked him. David liked him, too.
And Julia was frankly enchanted with him and with his horse. But Connie and Prince,--that was the puzzle of it,--Connie, fine white, immaculate in manner, in person and in thought,--Prince, rugged and brown, born of the plains and the mountains. Carol knew of course that Prince could move into the city, buy a fine home, join good clubs, dress like common men and be thoroughly respectable. But to Carol he would always be a brown streak of perfect horsemans.h.i.+p. Whatever could that awful Connie be thinking of?
The days pa.s.sed sweetly and restfully on the Bijou lawn, but one day, most unaccountably to Connie, Prince had an appointment with his business partner down at Brush. He would ride Ruby down and be back in time for dinner at night if it killed him. Connie was cross about that. She thought he should have asked her to drive him down in the car but since he did not she couldn't very well offer her services. What did he suppose she was hanging around that ugly little dead burg for? Take out the literary material, Fort Morgan had nothing for Connie. And since the literary material saw fit to absent itself, it was so many hours gone for nothing.
After he had gone, Connie decided to play a good trick on him. He would kill himself to get back to dinner with her, would he? Let him. He could eat it with David and Carol, and the little Julia he so adored.