Part 14 (1/2)

It was at a little junction station in eastern Colorado, in the clear blue-and-silver of a fine morning, that Mrs. Grayson and Sylvia met them. Mr. Grayson and his party had been down about fifty miles on a branch line for a speech at a town of importance, and they had begun the return journey before daylight in order to make the connection. But when the gray dawn came through the dusty car-windows, it was odd to see how neat and careful all appeared, even under such difficult circ.u.mstances.

Harley was surprised to realize the eagerness with which he looked forward to the meeting, and put it down to the long lack of feminine society. But he wondered if Sylvia had changed, if the nearer approach of her marriage with ”King” Plummer would make her reserved and with her outlook on the future--that is, as one apart.

He had a favorable seat in the car and he was the first to see them. The junction was a tiny place of not more than a half-dozen houses standing in the midst of a great plain, and it made a perfect silhouette against the gorgeous morning sunlight. Harley saw two slender figures outlined there in front of the station building, and, despite the distance, he knew them. There was to him something typically American and typically Western in these two women coming alone into that vast emptiness and waiting there in the utmost calmness, knowing that they were as safe as if they were in the heart of a great city, and perhaps safer.

He knew, too, which was Sylvia; her manner, her bearing, the poise of her figure, had become familiar to him. Slender and upright, she was in harmony with the majesty of these great and silent s.p.a.ces, but she did not now seem bold and forward to him; she was clothed in a different atmosphere altogether.

There was a warm greeting for Mr. Grayson and the hand of fellows.h.i.+p for the others. Harley held Sylvia's fingers in his for a moment--just a moment--and said, with some emphasis:

”Our little party has not been the same without you, Miss Morgan.”

”I'm glad to hear you say it,” she replied, frankly, ”and I'm glad to be back with all of you. It's a campaign that I enjoy.”

”It can be said for it that it is never monotonous.”

”That's one reason why I like it.”

She laughed a little, making no attempt to conceal her pleasure at this renewed touch with fresh, young life, and, because it was so obvious, Harley laughed also and shared her pleasure. He noticed, too, the new charm that she had in addition to the old, a softening of manner, a slight appeal that she made, without detracting in any wise from the impression of strength and self-reliance that she gave.

”Where did you leave 'King' Plummer?” he asked, unguardedly.

”In Idaho,” she replied, with sudden gravity. ”He is well, and I believe that he is happy. He is umpiring a great quarrel between the cattlemen and the sheepmen, or, rather, he is compelling both to listen to him and to agree to a compromise that he has suggested. So he is really enjoying himself. You do not know the delight that he takes in the handling of large and rather rough affairs.”

”I can readily guess it; he seems to have been made for them.”

But she said no more of ”King” Plummer, quickly turning the talk to the campaign, and showing at once that she had followed every phase of it with the closest and most anxious attention. Mrs. Grayson had walked on a little and was talking to her husband, but she glanced back and saw what she had expected. She and her husband turned presently in their walk, and she said, looking significantly at Harley and Miss Morgan:

”It is a great pleasure to Sylvia to be with your party again.”

There was such a curious inflection to her voice that the candidate exclaimed, ”Why, what do you mean, Anna?” and she merely replied, ”Oh, nothing!” which meant everything. The candidate, understanding, looked more attentively, and his eyes contracted a little, as if he were not wholly pleased at what he saw.

”It's a free world,” he said, ”but I am glad that 'King' Plummer will be with us again in a few days.”

But his wife, able to see further than he, merely looked thoughtful and did not reply.

Harley's solitary talk with Miss Morgan was brief; it could not be anything else under the circ.u.mstances; Hobart, with all sail set, bore down upon them.

”Come! Come, Harley!” he cried, with the perfect frankness that usually distinguished him, ”we don't permit any selfish monopolists here. We are all cast away on a desert island, so to speak, and there are a lot of us men and only two women, one of whom is mortgaged!”

Then he was welcoming Miss Morgan in florid style; and there, too, was the ancient beau, Tremaine, displaying all his little arts of elegance and despising Hobart's obvious methods; and Blaisdell, and all the others, forming a court about her and giving her an attention which could not fail to please her and bring a deeper red to her cheeks and a brighter flash to her eyes. It seemed to Mrs. Grayson, looking on, that the girl had been hungry for something which she had now found, and in finding which she was happy, and, despite her sense of loyalty, she felt a glow of sympathy.

But the sense of duty in Mrs. Grayson was strong, and while she hesitated much and sought for mental excuses to avoid it, she wrote a long letter to ”King” Plummer that evening in the waiting-room of a little wayside hotel. In many things that she said she was beautifully vague; but she told him how glad she was that he would join them so soon; she spoke of the quarrel between the cattlemen and the sheepmen as a closed affair, and complimented him on his skill in bringing it to an end so quickly; it was all the better because now he could come to them at once, and she boldly said how much Sylvia was missing him. But when she sealed and addressed the letter she reflected awhile before dropping it in the box on the wall.

”Now, ought I to do this?” she asked herself. ”Have I the right to hasten or to divert the course of affairs?”

She decided that she had the right, and mailed the letter.

”King” Plummer came a few days later--he said that he ”just blew in a few days ahead of time”--and received a hearty welcome from everybody, which he returned in double measure in his broad, spontaneous way. He placed a sounding kiss upon the somewhat flushed brow of Sylvia Morgan, and exclaimed, ”Well, my little girl, aren't you glad to see me ahead of time?” She replied quickly, though not loudly, that she was, and then he announced that he would stay with them for a long while. ”These are my mountains,” he said, ”and I'll have to show you the way through them.”

”King” Plummer, although inclined to be masterful, was admitted at once into the full members.h.i.+p of the party, and he entered upon what he called his first long vacation. He showed the keenest enjoyment in the speeches, the crowds, the enthusiasm, the travelling, and the quick-s.h.i.+fting scenes. He was a boy with the boys, but the watchful Mrs.

Grayson noticed a shade of difference between Sylvia with the ”King”

present and Sylvia with the ”King” absent. With him present there was a little restraint, a slight effort on her part to watch herself; but with him away there was great spontaneity and freedom, especially with the younger members like Harley and Hobart, and even Churchill, who reluctantly admitted that Miss Morgan was a fine girl, ”though rather Western, you know.”