Part 19 (1/2)
”Good boy,” said old ”Kiowa.” ”You'd better go get some supper.”
Ranse went to the kitchen at the rear of the house. Pedro, the Mexican cook, sprang up to bring the food he was keeping warm in the stove.
”Just a cup of coffee, Pedro,” he said, and drank it standing. And then:
”There's a tramp on a cot in the wagon-shed. Take him something to eat. Better make it enough for two.”
Ranse walked out toward the _jacals_. A boy came running.
”Manuel, can you catch Vaminos, in the little pasture, for me?”
”Why not, senor? I saw him near the _puerta_ [64] but two hours past.
He bears a drag-rope.”
[FOOTNOTE 64: puerta--(Spanish) gate]
”Get him and saddle him as quick as you can.”
”_p.r.o.nt.i.to, senor_.”
Soon, mounted on Vaminos, Ranse leaned in the saddle, pressed with his knees, and galloped eastward past the store, where sat Sam trying his guitar in the moonlight.
Vaminos shall have a word--Vaminos the good dun horse. The Mexicans, who have a hundred names for the colours of a horse, called him _gruyo_. He was a mouse-coloured, slate-coloured, flea-bitten roan-dun, if you can conceive it. Down his back from his mane to his tail went a line of black. He would live forever; and surveyors have not laid off as many miles in the world as he could travel in a day.
Eight miles east of the Cibolo ranch-house Ranse loosened the pressure of his knees, and Vaminos stopped under a big ratama tree. The yellow ratama blossoms showered fragrance that would have undone the roses of France. The moon made the earth a great concave bowl with a crystal sky for a lid. In a glade five jack-rabbits leaped and played together like kittens. Eight miles farther east shone a faint star that appeared to have dropped below the horizon. Night riders, who often steered their course by it, knew it to be the light in the Rancho de los Olmos.
In ten minutes Yenna Curtis galloped to the tree on her sorrel pony Dancer. The two leaned and clasped hands heartily.
”I ought to have ridden nearer your home,” said Ranse. ”But you never will let me.”
Yenna laughed. And in the soft light you could see her strong white teeth and fearless eyes. No sentimentality there, in spite of the moonlight, the odour of the ratamas, and the admirable figure of Ranse Truesdell, the lover. But she was there, eight miles from her home, to meet him.
”How often have I told you, Ranse,” she said, ”that I am your half-way girl? Always half-way.”
”Well?” said Ranse, with a question in his tones.
”I did,” said Yenna, with almost a sigh. ”I told him after dinner when I thought he would be in a good humour. Did you ever wake up a lion, Ranse, with the mistaken idea that he would be a kitten? He almost tore the ranch to pieces. It's all up. I love my daddy, Ranse, and I'm afraid--I'm afraid of him too. He ordered me to promise that I'd never marry a Truesdell. I promised. That's all. What luck did you have?”
”The same,” said Ranse, slowly. ”I promised him that his son would never marry a Curtis. Somehow I couldn't go against him. He's mighty old. I'm sorry, Yenna.”
The girl leaned in her saddle and laid one hand on Ranse's, on the horn of his saddle.
”I never thought I'd like you better for giving me up,” she said ardently, ”but I do. I must ride back now, Ranse. I slipped out of the house and saddled Dancer myself. Good-night, neighbour.”
”Good-night,” said Ranse. ”Ride carefully over them badger holes.”
They wheeled and rode away in opposite directions. Yenna turned in her saddle and called clearly:
”Don't forget I'm your half-way girl, Ranse.”