CHAPTER III
THE YOUNG LADY FROM PHILADELPHIA
Miss Enid Maitland was a highly specialized product of the far east. Isay far, viewing Colorado as a point of departure not as identifying herwith the orient. The classic shades of Bryn Mawr had been the "Groves ofAcademus where with old Plato she had walked." Incidentally during hercompletion of the exhaustive curriculum of that justly famousinstitution she had acquired at least a bowing acquaintance with othermasters of the mind.
Nor had the physical in her education been sacrificed to the mental. Inher at least the _mens sana_ and the _corpore sano_ were alike inevidence. She had ridden to hounds many times on the anise-scented trailof the West Chester Hunt! Exciting tennis and leisurely golf had engagedher attention on the courts and greens of the Merion Cricket Club. Shehad buffeted "Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste" on the beach atCape May and at Atlantic City.
Spiritually she was a devoted member of the Episcopal Church, of thevariety that abhors the word "Protestant" in connection therewith.Altogether she reflected great credit upon her pastors and masters,spiritual and temporal, and her up-bringing in the three departments oflife left little to be desired.
Upon her graduation she had been at once received and acclaimed by the"Assembly Set," of Philadelphia, to which indeed she belongedunquestioned by right of birth and position--and there was no otherpower under heaven by which she could have effected entrance therein; atleast that is what the "outs" thought of that most exclusive circle. Theold home of the Maitlands overlooking Rittenhouse Square had been thescene of her debut. In all the refined and decorous gayeties ofPhiladelphia's ultra-fastidious society she had participated. She hadeven looked upon money standardized New York in its delirium ofextravagance, at least in so far as a sedate and well-born Philadelphiafamily could countenance such golden madness. During the year she hadranged like a conqueror--pardon the masculine appellation--between PalmBeach in the South and Bar Harbor in the North. Philadelphia was proudof her, and she was not unknown in those unfortunate parts of the UnitedStates which lay without.
In all this she had remained a frank, free, unspoiled young woman. Lifewas full of zest for her, and she enjoyed it with the mostun-Pennsylvanian enthusiasm.
The second summer after her coming out found her in Colorado. RobertMaitland was one of the big men of the west. He had departed fromPhiladelphia at an early age and had settled in Colorado while it wasstill in the formative period. There he had grown up with the state. ThePhiladelphia Maitlands could never understand it or explain it. BobMaitland must have been, they argued, a reversion to an ancient type, athrowback to some robber baron long antecedent to William Penn. And thespeculation was true. The blood of some lawless adventurer of the past,discreetly forgot by the conservative section of the family, bubbled inhis veins unchecked by the repressive atmosphere of his home and hisearly environment.
He had thoroughly identified himself with his new surroundings and hadplunged into all the activities of the west. During one period in hislife he had actually served as sheriff of one of the border counties,and it was a rapid "bad man" indeed, who enjoyed any advantage over himwhen it came to drawing his "gun." His skill and daring had beenunquestioned. He had made a name for himself which still abides,especially in the mountains where things yet remained almost asprimitive as they had been from the beginning.
His fame had been accompanied by fortune, too; the cattle upon athousand hills were his, the treasures of mines of fabulous richnesswere at his command. He lived in Denver in one of the greatest of thebonanza palaces on the hills of that city, confronting the snow-cappedmountain range. For the rest he held stock in all sorts of corporations,was a director in numerous concerns and so on--the reader can supply theusual catalogue, they are all alike. He had married late in life and wasthe father of two little girls and a boy, the oldest sixteen and theyoungest ten.
Going east, which he did not love, on an infrequent business trip he hadrenewed his acquaintance with his brother and the one ewe lamb of hisbrother's flock, to wit, the aforementioned Enid. He had been struck, aseverybody was, by the splendid personality of the girl and had strivenearnestly to disabuse her mind of the prevalent idea that there wasnothing much worth while on the continent beyond the Alleghanies exceptscenery.
"What you need, Enid, is a ride across the plains, a sight of realmountains, beside which these little foothills in Pennsylvania thatpeople back here make so much of wouldn't be noticed. You want to getsome of the spirited glorious freedom of the west into your conservativestraight-laced little body!"
"In my day, Robert," reprovingly remarked his brother, Enid's father,"freedom was the last thing a young lady gently born and delicatelynurtured would have coveted."
"Your day is past, Steve," returned the younger Maitland with shockingcarelessness. "Freedom is what every woman desires now, especially whenshe is married. You are not in love with anybody are you, Enid?"
"With not a soul," frankly replied the girl, greatly amused at thecolloquy between the two men, who though both mothered by the same womanwere as dissimilar as--what shall I say, the east is from the west? Letit go at that.
"That's all right," said her uncle, relieved apparently. "I will takeyou out west and introduce you to some real men and--"
"If I thought it possible," interposed Mr. Stephen Maitland in his mostaustere and dignified manner, "that my daughter," with a perceptibleemphasis on the "my," as if he and not the daughter were the principalbeing under consideration, "should ever so far forget what belongs toher station in life and her family as to allow her affections to becomeengaged by anyone who, from his birth and up-bringing in theer--ah--unlicensed atmosphere of the western country would be _personanon grata_ to the dignified society of this ancient city and--"
"Nonsense," interrupted the younger brother bluntly. "You have livedhere wrapped up in yourselves and your dinky little town so long thatmental asphyxiation is threatening you all."
"I will thank you, Robert," said his brother with something approachingthe manner in which he would have repelled a blasphemy, "not to refer toPhiladelphia as--er--What was your most extraordinary word?"
"'Dinky,' if my recollection serves."
"Ah, precisely. I am not sure as to the meaning of the term but Iconceive it to be something opprobrious. You can say what you like aboutme and mine, but Philadelphia, no."
"Oh, the town's right enough," returned his brother, not at allimpressed. "I'm talking about people now. There are just as fine men andwomen in the west as in New York or Philadelphia."
"I am sure you don't mean to be offensive, Robert, but really theassociation of ideas in your mention of us with that common and vulgarNew York is er--unpleasant," fairly shuddered the elder Maitland.
"I'm only urging you to recognize the quality of the western people. Idare say they are of a finer type than the average here."
"From your standpoint, no doubt," continued his brother severely andsomewhat wearily as if the matter were not worth all this argument. "Allthat I want of them is that they stay in the west where they belong andnot strive to mingle with the east; there is a barrier between us andthem which it is not well to cross. To permit any intermixtures ofer--race or--"
"The people out there are white, Steve," interrupted his brothersardonically. "I wasn't contemplating introducing Enid here to Chinese,or Negroes, or Indians, or--"
"Don't you see," said Mr. Stephen Maitland, stubbornly waving aside thissarcastic and irrelevant comment, "from your very conversation the vastgulf that there is between you and me? Although you had every advantagein life that birth can give you, we are--I mean you have changed sogreatly," he had quickly added, loath to offend.
But he mistook the light in his brother's eyes, it was a twinkle not aflash. Robert Maitland laughed, laughed with what his brother conceivedto be indecorous boisterousness.
"How little you know of the bone and sinew of this country, Steve," heexclaimed presently. Robert Maitland could not comprehend how iti
rritated his stately brother to be called "Steve." Nobody ever spoke ofhim but as Stephen Maitland--"But Lord, I don't blame you," continuedthe Westerner. "Any man whose vision is barred by a foothill couldn't beexpected to know much of the main range and what's beyond."
"There isn't any danger of my falling in love with anybody," said Enidat last, with all the confidence of two triumphant social seasons. "Ithink I must be immune even to dukes," she said gayly.
"I referred to worthy young Americans of--" began her father who, to dohim justice, was so satisfied with his own position that no foreigntitle 'dazzled' him in the least degree.
"Rittenhouse Square," cut in Robert Maitland with amused sarcasm. "Well,Enid, you seem to have run the gamut of the east pretty thoroughly, comeout and spend the summer with me in Colorado. My Denver house is open toyou, we have a ranch amid the foothills, or if you are game we canbreak away from civilization entirely and find some unexplored, unknowncanyon in the heart of the mountains and camp there. We'll get back tonature, which seems to be impossible in Philadelphia, and you will seethings and learn things that you will never see or learn anywhere else.It'll do you good, too; from what I hear, you have been going the paceand those cheeks of yours are a little too pale for so splendid a girl,you look too tired under the eyes for youth and beauty."
"I believe I am not very fit," said the girl, "and if father willpermit--"
"Of course, of course," said Stephen Maitland. "You are your ownmistress anyway, and having no mother"--Enid's mother had died in herinfancy--"I suppose that I could not interfere or object if I wished to,but no marrying or giving in marriage: Remember that."
"Nonsense, father," answered the young woman lightly. "I am not anxiousto assume the bonds of wedlock."
"Well, that settles it," said Robert Maitland. "We'll give you a royalgood time. I must run up to New York and Boston for a few days, but Ishall be back in a week and I can pick you up then."
"What is the house in Denver, is it er--may I ask, provided with allmodern conveniences and--" began the elder Maitland nervously.
Robert Maitland laughed.
"What do you take us for, Steve? Do you ever read the westernnewspapers?"
"I confess that I have not given much thought to the west since Istudied geography and--_The Philadelphia Ledger_ has been thoughtsufficient for the family since--"
"Gracious!" exclaimed Maitland. "The house cost half a million dollarsif you must know it, and if there is anything that modern science cancontribute to comfort and luxury that isn't in it, I don't know what itis. Shall it be the house in Denver, or the ranch, or a real camp in thewilds, Enid?"
"First the house in Denver," said Enid, "and then the ranch and then themountains."
"Right O! That shall be the program."
"Will my daughter's life be perfectly safe from the Cowboys, Indians andDesperadoes?"
"Quite safe," answered Robert, with deep gravity. "The cowboys no longershoot up the city and it has been years since the Indians have held upeven a trolley car. The only real desperado in my acquaintance is themildest, gentlest old stage driver in the west."
"Do you keep up an acquaintance with men of that class, still?" askedhis brother in great surprise.
"You know I was Sheriff in a border county for a number of years and--"
"But you must surely have withdrawn from all such society now."
"Out west," said Robert Maitland, "when we know a man and like him, whenwe have slept by him on the plains, ridden with him through themountains, fought with him against some border terror, some bad manthirsting to kill, we don't forget him, we don't cut his acquaintance,and it doesn't make any difference whether the one or the other of us isrich or poor. I have friends who can't frame a grammatical sentence, whohabitually eat with their knives, yet who are absolutely devoted to meand I to them. The man is the thing out there." He smiled and turned toEnid. "Always excepting the supremacy of woman," he added.
"How fascinating!" exclaimed the girl. "I want to go there right away."
And this was the train of events which brought about the change. Beholdthe young lady astride of a horse for the first time in her life in adivided skirt, that fashion prevalent elsewhere not having been acceptedby the best equestriennes of Philadelphia. She was riding ahead of alumbering mountain wagon, surrounded by other riders, which was loadedwith baggage, drawn by four sturdy broncos and followed by a number ofobstinate little burros at present unencumbered with packs which wouldbe used when they got further from civilization and the way was nolonger practicable for anything on wheels.
Miss Enid Maitland was clad in a way that would have caused her father astroke of apoplexy if he could have been suddenly made aware of herdress, if she had burst into the drawing-room without announcement forinstance. Her skirt was distinctly short, she wore heavy hobnailed shoesthat laced up to her knees, she had on a bright blue sweater, a kind ofa cap known as a tam-o-shanter was pinned above her glorious hair, whichwas closely braided and wound around her head. She wore a silkhandkerchief loosely tied around her neck, a knife and revolver hung ather belt, a little watch was strapped to one wrist, a handsomely braidedquirt dangled from the other, a pair of spurs adorned her heels and,most discomposing fact of all, by her side rode a handsome and dashingcavalier.
How Mr. James Armstrong might have appeared in the conventional blackand white of evening clothes was not quite clear to her, for she had asyet never beheld him in that obliterating raiment, but in the habit ofthe west, riding trousers, heavy boots that laced to the knees, blueshirt, his head covered by a noble "Stetson," mounted on the fieryrestive bronco which he rode to perfection, he was ideal. Alas for thevanity of human proposition! Mr. James Armstrong, friend and protegethese many years of Mr. Robert Maitland, mine owner and cattle man on amuch smaller scale than his older friend, was desperately in love withEnid Maitland, and Enid, swept off her feet by a wooing which began withprecipitant ardor so soon as he laid eyes on her, was more profoundlymoved by his suit, or pursuit, than she could have imagined.
_Omne ignotum pro magnifico!_
She had been wooed in the conventional fashion many times and oft, onthe sands of Palm Beach, along the cliffs of Newport, in the romanticglens of Mount Desert, in the old fashioned drawing-room overlookingRittenhouse Square. She had been proposed to in motor cars, on the decksof yachts and once even while riding to hounds, but there had been atouch of sameness about it all. Never had she been made love to with theheadlong gallantry, with the dashing precipitation of the west. It hadswept her from her moorings. She found almost before she was aware of itthat her past experience now stood her in little stead. She awoke to asudden realization of the fact that she was practically pledged to JamesArmstrong after an acquaintance of three weeks in Denver and on theranch.
Business of the most important and critical nature required Armstrong'spresence east at this juncture, and willy-nilly there was no way hecould put off his departure longer. He had to leave the girl with anuneasy conscience that though he had her half-way promise, he had herbut half-way won. He had snatched the ultimate day from his businessdemands to ride with her on the first stage of her journey to themountains.
The Chalice Of Courage: A Romance of Colorado Page 7