by Zane Grey
“You see, Dick and I felt that you belonged to me, by rights. I fell in love with a picture of you, that you sent him—that one taken in your graduation gown—and I told Dick I was going to take the next train East, and carry you off by force, if I couldn’t get you any other way. But Dick thought I’d stand a better show to wait till he’d coaxed you out here. We had it all fixed, that you’d come and find a prairie knight that was ready to fight for you, and he’d make you like him, whether you wanted to or not; and then he’d keep you here, and we’d all be happy ever after. And Dick would pull out of the Northern Pool—and of course you would—and we’d have a company of our own. Oh! we had some great castles built out here on the prairie, let me tell you! And then, when you finally came here, you had milord tagging along—and you thinking you were in love with him! Maybe you think I wasn’t shaky, girlie! The air castles got awfully wobbly, and it looked like they were going to cave in on us. But I was bound to stay in the game if I could, and Dick did all he could to get you to looking my way—and it’s all right, isn’t it, Trixie?” Keith kept recurring to the ecstatic realization that it was all right.
Beatrice meditated for a minute.
“I never dreamed—Dick never even mentioned you in any of his letters,” she said, in a rather dazed tone. “And when I came he made me believe you were a horrible flirt, and I never can resist the temptation to measure lances.”
“And take a fall out of a male flirt,” Keith supplemented. “Dick,” he went on sententiously and slangily, “was dead onto his job.” After that he helped her into the saddle, and they rode blissfully homeward.
Near the ranch they met Dick, who pulled up and eyed them anxiously at first, and then with a broad smile.
“Say, Trix,” he queried slyly, “who does Rex belong to?”
Keith came to the rescue promptly, just as a brave knight should. “You,” he retorted. “But I tell you right now, he won’t very long. You’re going to do the decent thing and give him to Trixie—for a wedding present.”
Dick looked as though Trix was welcome to any thing he possessed.
CHAPTER 14
Sir Redmond Gets His answer
“Before long, dear, we shall get on the great ship, and ride across the large, large ocean, and be at home. You will be delighted to see Peggy, and Rupert, and the dogs, won’t you, dear?” Miss Hayes, her cheeks actually getting some color into them at the thought of going home, buttered a fluffy biscuit for her idol.
Dorman took two bites while he considered. “Rupert’ll want my little wheels, for my feet, what Mr. Cam’ron gave me—but he can’t have ’em, dough. I ’spect he’ll be mad. I wonder what’ll Peggy say bout my two puppies. I’ve got to take my two puppies wis me. Will dey get sick riding on de water, auntie? Say, will dey?”
“I—I think not, dear,” ventured his auntie cautiously. His auntie was a conscientious woman, and she knew very little about puppies.
“Be’trice will help me take care of dem if dey’re sick,” he remarked comfortably.
Then something in his divinity’s face startled his assurance. “You’s going wis us, isn’t you, Be’trice? I want you to help take care of my two puppies. Martha can’t, ’cause she slaps dere ears. Is you going wis us, Be’trice?”
This, at the dinner table, was, to say the least, embarrassing—especially on this especial evening, when Beatrice was trying to muster courage to give Sir Redmond the only answer it was possible to give him now. It was an open secret that, in case she had accepted him, the home-going of Miss Hayes would be delayed a bit, when they would all go together. Beatrice had overheard her mother and Miss Hayes discussing this possibility only the day before. She undertook the impossible, and attempted to head Dorman off.
“Perhaps you’ll see a whale, honey. The puppies never saw a whale, I’m sure. What do you suppose they’d think?”
“Is you going?”
“You’d have to hold them up high, you know, so they could see, and show them just where to look, and—”
“Is you going, Be’trice?”
Beatrice sent a quick, despairing glance around the table. Four pairs of eyes were fixed upon her with varying degrees of interest and anxiety. The fifth pair—Dick’s—were trying to hide their unrighteous glee by glaring down at the chicken wing on his plate. Beatrice felt a strong impulse to throw something at him. She gulped and faced the inevitable. It must come some time, she thought, and it might as well be now—though it did seem a pity to spoil a good dinner for every one but Dick, who was eating his with relish.
“No, honey”—her voice was clear and had the note of finality—“I’m not going—ever.”
Sir Redmond’s teeth went together with a click, and he picked up the pepper shaker mechanically and peppered his salad until it was perfectly black, and Beatrice wondered how he ever expected to eat it. Mrs. Lansell dropped her fork on the floor, and had to have a clean one brought. Miss Hayes sent a frightened glance at her brother. Dick sat and ate fried chicken.
“Why, Be’trice? I wants you to—and de puppies’ll need you—and auntie, and—” Dorman gathered himself for the last, crushing argument—“and Uncle Redmon’ wants you awf’lly!”
Beatrice took a sip of ice water, for she needed it.
“Why, Be’trice? Gran-mama’ll let you go, guess. Can’t she go, gran’mama?”
It was Mrs. Lansell’s turn to test the exquisite torture of that prickly chill along the spine. Like Beatrice, she dodged.
“Little boys,” she announced weakly, “should not speak until they’re spoken to.”
Dick came near strangling on a shred of chicken.
“Can’t she go, gran’mama? Say, can’t she? Tell Be’trice to go home wis us, gran’mama!”
“Beatrice”—Mrs. Lansell swallowed—“is not a little child any longer, Dorman. She is a woman and can do as she likes. I”—she was speaking to the whole group—“I can only advise her.”
Dorman gave a squeal of triumph. “See? You can go, Be’trice! Gran’mama says you can go. You will go, won’t you, Be’trice? Say yes!”
“No!” said Beatrice, with desperate emphasis. “I won’t.”
“I want—Be’trice—to go-o!” Dorman slid down upon his shoulder blades, gave a squeal which was not triumph, but temper, and kicked the table till every dish on it danced.
“Dorman sit up!” commanded his auntie. “Dorman, stop, this instant! I’m ashamed of you; where is my good little man? Redmond.”
Sir Redmond seemed glad of the chance to do something besides sit quietly in his place and look calm. He got up deliberately, and in two minutes, or less, Dorman was in the woodshed with him, making sounds that frightened his puppies dreadfully and put the coyotes to shame.
Beatrice left the table hurriedly to escape the angry eyes of her mother. The sounds in the woodshed had died to a subdued sniffling, and she retreated to the front porch, hoping to escape observation. There she nearly ran against Sir Redmond, who was staring off into the dusk to where the moon was peering redly over a black pinnacle of the Bear Paws.
She would have slipped back into the house, but he did not give her the chance. He turned and faced her steadily, as he had more than once faced the Boers, when he knew that before him was nothing but defeat.
“So you’re not going to England ever?”
Pride had squeezed every shade of emotion from his voice.
“No.” Beatrice gripped her fingers together tightly.
“Are you sure you won’t be sorry—afterward?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Beatrice had never done anything she hated more.
Sir Redmond, looking into her eyes, wondered why those much-vaunted sharpshooters, the Boers, had blundered and passed him by.
“I don’t suppose it matters much now—but will you tell me why? I believed yo
u would decide differently.” He was holding his voice down to a dead level, and it was not easy.
“Because—” Beatrice faced the moon, which threw a soft glow upon her face, and into her wonderful, deep eyes a golden light. “Oh, I’m sorry, Sir Redmond! But you see, I didn’t know. I—I just learned today what it means to—to love. I—I am going to stay here. A new company—is about to be formed, Sir Redmond. The Maltese Cross and the—Triangle Bar—are going to cast their lot together.” The golden glow deepened and darkened, and blended with the red blood which flushed cheek and brow and throat.
It took Sir Redmond a full minute to comprehend. When he did, he breathed deep, shut his lips upon words that would have frightened her, and went down the steps into the gloom.
Beatrice watched him stride away into the dusky silence, and her heart ached with sympathy for him. Then she looked beyond, to where the lights of the Cross ranch twinkled joyously, far down the coulee, and the sweet egotism of happiness enfolded her, shutting him out. After that she forgot him utterly. She looked up at the moon, sailing off to meet the stars, smiled good-fellowship and then went in to face her mother.
SKYRIDER, by B.M. Bower
CHAPTER ONE
A POET WITHOUT HONOR
Before I die, I’ll ride the sky;
I’ll part the clouds like foam.
I’ll brand each star with the Rolling R,
And lead the Great Bear home.
I’ll circle Mars to beat the cars,
On Venus I will call.
If she greets me fair as I ride the air,
To meet her I will stall.
I’ll circle high—as if passing by—
Then volplane, bank, and land.
Then if she’ll smile I’ll stop awhile,
And kiss her snow-white hand.
To toast her health and wish her wealth
I’ll drink the Dipper dry.
Then say, “Hop in, and we’ll take a spin,
For I’m a rider of the sky.”
Through the clouds we’ll float in my airplane boat—
Mary V flipped the rough paper over with so little tenderness that a corner tore in her fingers, but the next page was blank. She made a sound suspiciously like a snort, and threw the tablet down on the littered table of the bunk house. After all, what did she care where they floated—Venus and Johnny Jewel? Riding the sky with Venus when he knew very well that his place was out in the big corral, riding some of those broom-tail bronks that he was being paid a salary—a good salary—for breaking! Mary V thought that her father ought to be told about the way Johnny was spending all his time—writing silly poetry about Venus. It was the first she had ever known about his being a poet. Though it was pretty punk, in Mary V’s opinion. She was glad and thankful that Johnny had refrained from writing any such doggerel about her. That would have been perfectly intolerable. That he should write poetry at all was intolerable. The more she thought of it, the more intolerable it became.
Just for punishment, and as a subtle way of letting him know what she thought of him and his idiotic jingle, she picked up the tablet, found the pencil Johnny had used, and did a little poetizing herself. She could have rhymed it much better, of course, if she had condescended to give any thought whatever to the matter, which she did not. Condescension went far enough when she stooped to reprove the idiot by finishing the verse that he had failed to finish, because he had already overtaxed his poor little brain.
Stooping, then, to reprove, and flout, and ridicule, Mary V finished the verse so that it read thus:
“Through the clouds we’ll float in my airplane boat—
For Venus I am truly sorry!
All the stars you sight, you witless wight,
You’ll see when you and Venus light!
But then—I’m sure that I should worry!”
Mary V was tempted to write more. She rather fancied that term “witless wight” as applied to Johnny Jewel. It had a classical dignity which atoned for the slang made necessary by her instant need of a rhyme for sorry.
But there was the danger of being caught in the act by some meddlesome fellow who loved to come snooping around where he had no business, so Mary V placed the tablet open on the table just as she had found it, and left the bunk house without deigning to fulfill the errand of mercy that had taken her there. Why should she trouble to sew the lining in a coat sleeve for a fellow who pined for a silly flirtation with Venus? Let Johnny Jewel paw and struggle to get into his coat. Better, let Venus sew that lining for him!
Mary V stopped halfway to the house, and hesitated. It had occurred to her that she might add another perfectly withering verse to that poem. It could start: “While sailing in my airplane boat, I’ll ask Venus to mend my coat.”
Mary V started back, searing couplets forming with incredible swiftness in her brain. How she would flay Johnny Jewel with the keen blade of her wit! If he thought he was the only person at the Rolling R ranch who could write poetry, it would be a real kindness to show him his mistake.
Just then Bud Norris and Bill Hayden came up from the corrals, heading straight for the bunk house. Mary V walked on, past the bunk house and across the narrow flat opposite the corrals and up on the first bench of the bluff that sheltered the ranch buildings from the worst of the desert winds. She did it very innocently, and as though she had never in her life had any thought of invading the squat, adobe building kept sacred to the leisure hours of the Rolling R boys.
There was a certain ledge where she had played when she was a child, and which she favored nowadays as a place to sit and look down upon the activities in the big corral—whenever activities were taking place therein—an interested spectator who was not suspected of being within hearing. As a matter of fact, Mary V could hear nearly everything that was said in that corral, if the wind was right. She could also see very well indeed, as the boys had learned to their cost when their riding did not come quite up to the mark. She made for that ledge now.
She had no more than settled herself comfortably when Bud and Bill came cackling from the bunk house. A little chill of apprehension went up Mary V’s spine and into the roots of her hair. She had not thought of the possibilities of that open tablet falling into other hands than Johnny Jewel’s.
“Hyah! You gol-darn witless wight,” bawled Bud Norris, and slapped Bill Hayden on the back and roared. “Hee-yah! Skyrider! When yo’ all git done kissin’ Venus’s snow-white hand, come and listen at what’s been wrote for yo’ all by Mary V! Whoo-ee! Where’s the Great Bear at that yo’ all was goin’ to lead home, Skyrider?” Then they laughed like two maniacs. Mary V gritted her teeth at them and wished aloud that she had her shotgun with her.
A youth, whose sagging chaps pulled in his waistline until he looked almost as slim as a girl, ceased dragging at the bridle reins of a balky bronk and glanced across the corral. His three companions were hurrying that way, lured by a paper which Bud was waving high above his head as he straddled the top rail of the fence.
“Johnny’s a poet, and we didn’t know it!” bawled Bud. “Listen here at what the witless wight’s been a-writin’!” Then, seated upon the top rail and with his hat set far back on his head, Bud Norris began to declaim inexorably the first two verses, until the indignant author came over and interfered with voice and a vicious yank at Bud’s foot, which brought that young man down forthwith.
“Aw, le’ me alone while I read the rest! Honest, it’s swell po’try, and I want the boys to hear it. Listen—get out, Johnny! ‘I’ll circle high as if passing by, then—v-o-l—then vollup, bank, an’ land—’ Hold him off’n me, boys! This is rich stuff I’m readin’! Hey, hold your hand over his mouth, why don’t yuh, Aleck? Yo’ all want to wait till I git to where—”
“I can’t,” wailed Aleck. “He bit me!”
“Well, take ’i
m down an’ set on him, then. I tell yuh, boys, this is rich—”
“You give that back here, or I’ll murder yuh!” a full-throated young voice cried hoarsely.
“Here, quit yore kickin’!” Bill admonished.
“Go on, Bud; the boys have got to hear it—it’s rich!”
“Yeh—shut up, Johnny! Po’try is wrote to be read—go on, Bud. Start ’er over again. I never got to hear half of it on account of Johnny’s cussin’. Go on—I got him chewin’ on my hat now. Read ’er from the start-off.”
“The best is yet to come,” Bill gloated pantingly, while he held the author’s legs much as he would hold down a yearling. “All set, Bud—let ’er go!”
Whereupon Bud cleared his throat and began again, rolling the words out sonorously, so that Mary V heard every word distinctly:
“‘Before I die, I’ll ride the sky;
I’ll part the clouds like foam.
I’ll brand each star with the Rolling R,
And lead the Great Bear home.’”
“Say, that’s swell!” a little fellow they called Curley interjected. “By gosh, that’s darned good po’try! I never knowed Johnny could—”
He was frowned into silence by the reader, who went on exuberantly, the lines punctuated by profane gurgles from the author.
“Now this here,” Bud paused to explain, “was c’lab’rated on by Mary V. The first line was wrote by our ’steemed young friend an’ skyrider poet, but the balance is in Mary V’s handwritin’. And I claim she’s some poet! Quit cussin’ and listen, Johnny; yo’ all never heard this ’un, and I’ll gamble on it:
“‘Through the clouds we’ll float in my airplane boat—’ That, there’s by Skyrider. And here Mary V finishes it up:
“‘For Venus I am truly sorry!
All the stars you sight, you witless wight,
You’ll see when you and Venus light!