Part 18 (2/2)
”Tell Mrs. Simms to have Simms report to me to-morrow noon at the ranch.
Show Peg over Upper Farm. She won't insist upon being personally conducted by me, I'll wager. Get your lunch there. Mrs. Simms' jelly cookies will make you purr with repletion, Peggy. I told Ming Soy that we wouldn't be back till late afternoon. Take your time. Don't let Peg ride too hard. Jerry won't be anxious. She knows what distances are here.”
”But, Steve, don't you need me? I can take Miss Glamorgan back and join you.”
”No, I'm riding alone. I have a few fairly fresh trails to follow up. Be a good child, Peg-o'-my-heart, and do exactly what the best range-rider on the Double O tells you to do.” He laughed at her indignant eyes, touched Blue Devil with his heel and loped off. Peggy looked after him and then at Benson.
”I wonder--I don't like that Denbigh woman. Did you see her eyes when Steve turned her down? Careful Cosmetics is the name for her. She must think it's the open season for vamps round here.” She looked at Tommy with laughter and a glint of mischief in her hazel eyes. ”Now I wonder who Steve could have meant by the best range-rider of the Double O?” she mused in a low voice as though communing with herself.
Benson swept off his Stetson with swash-buckling impressiveness.
”I don't like to talk about myself--but,” he murmured with exaggerated humility, ”I'll say that I--now who the d.i.c.kens is that? The Simms kid.
Johnny Simms. What does he want? I----” His voice trailed off into silence as he watched a boy who came galloping up on a pony to speak to Courtlandt. Tommy unconsciously caught the bridle of the girl's horse.
Bubbles and Soapy, who had been paddock mates, nuzzled noses. The girl and man watching saw the boy hand Steve a paper, then whirl and gallop away as though pursued by a thousand furies.
”That's queer,” Benson observed under his breath.
”What's queer?” asked Peggy in the same hushed whisper.
”That the boy should break away like that. He adores Steve. So do the other Simms kids. Now what is Courtlandt doing? Burning something?” as a wisp of smoke fell to the ground.
”Why don't you go and find out?” in a tone which was own cousin to his.
”Nothing doing. You don't know Steve. I'm here; he knows it. He never misses a trick. If he wants me he'll shout. There, you see? He doesn't,”
as Courtlandt, after a glance at the ground where the smoke had fallen, galloped across the field toward the ranch road.
”You're fond of Steve, aren't you?” Peggy probed as they headed their horses toward Upper Farm.
”Fond of him! That's a deleted, diluted expression of my sentiments for the Whistling Lieut. We literally went through fire and water overseas; since then I've been on the ranch. You see, the German Inn where Steve and I sojourned for a couple of months didn't have a particularly beneficial effect on my health, so when I got back to the good old U. S.
A. I came here to recuperate and I have stayed.”
”Haven't you any family?”
”I have. One devoted, in-perfect-condition mother, 1921 model, ditto father. She is coming out next week. Hasn't your sister written you about me?” curiously.
”What conceit! She hasn't written pages about you,” with a laugh which sent the color to his face in a flood. ”She wrote that you were here, that Steve said that you had a future if you'd stick to ranching and leave celluloid alone--now what did he mean by that?”
”So Steve said that I was a man with a future, did he? Make a mental note of that, Miss Glamorgan,” his tone and look brought a startled flash to eyes which had been so boyishly friendly. He steadied his voice before he went on: ”I've had a fool idea that I wanted to be a movie-actor--but----”
”But don't you want to any more?”
”No.”
”When did you experience a change of heart?”
”This morning at exactly two o'clock, I decided that there was nothing in it, that I wanted to be a solid citizen with a settled abiding place.”
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