The Boss of the Lazy Y, Charles Alden Seltzer [top 10 best books of all time .txt] 📗

She was arrayed in a riding habit of brown corduroy which consisted of a divided skirt—a "doubled-barreled" one in the sarcastic phraseology of the male cowpuncher, who affects to despise such an article of feminine apparel—a brown woolen blouse with a low collar, above which she had sensibly tied a neckerchief to keep the sun and sand from blistering her neck; and a black felt hat with a wide brim. On her hands were a pair of silver-spangled leather gauntlets; encasing her feet were a pair of high-topped, high-heeled riding boots, ornamented with a pair of long-roweled Mexican spurs, mounted with silver. She was carrying a saddle which was also bedecked and bespangled with silver.

Illumination came instantly to Calumet. These things—the saddle, the riding habit, the spurs—were material possessions that connected her with the past. They were her personal belongings, kept and treasured from the more prosperous days of her earlier life.

At the first look he had felt a mean impulse to ridicule her because of them, but this impulse was succeeded instantly by a queer feeling of pity for her, and he kept silent.

But even had he ridiculed her, his ridicule would have been merely a mask behind which he could have hidden his surprise and admiration, for though her riding habit suggested things effete and eastern, which are always to be condemned on general principles, it certainly did fit her well, was becoming, neat, and in it she made a figure whose attractions were not to be denied.

She knew how to wear her clothes, too, he noted that instantly. She was at home in them; she graced them, gave them a subtle hint of quality that carried far and sank deep. As she came toward him he observed that her cheeks were a trifle flushed, her eyes a little brighter than usual, but for all that she was at ease and natural.

She stopped in front of him and smiled.

"Do you mind going over to the Diamond K with me this morning?" she asked.

"What for?" he said gruffly, reddening as he thought she might see the admiration which was slumbering in his eyes.

"To buy some cattle," she returned. "Kelton, of the Diamond K, hasn't been fortunate this season. Little Darby has been dry nearly all of the time and there has been little good grass on his range. In the first place, he had too much stock, even if conditions were right. I have heard that Kelton offered to pay the Taggarts for the use of part of their grass, but they have never been friends and the Taggarts wanted to charge him an outrageous price for the privilege. Therefore, Kelton is anxious to get rid of some of his stock. We need cattle and we can get them from him at a reasonable figure. He has some white Herefords that I would like to get."

He cleared his throat and hesitated, frowning.

"Why don't you take Dade—or Malcolm?" he suggested.

She looked straight at him. "Don't be priggish," she said. "Dade and Malcolm have nothing to do with the running of this ranch. I want you to go with me, because I am going to buy some cattle and I want you to confirm the deal."

He laughed. "Do you reckon you need to go at all?" he said. "I figure to know cattle some myself, an' I wouldn't let Kelton hornswoggle me."

She straightened, her chin lifting a little. "Well," she said slowly, "if that is the way you feel, I presume I shall have to go alone. I had thought, though, that the prospective owner of the Lazy Y might have enough interest in his property to put aside his likes and dislikes long enough to care for his own interests. Also," she added, "where I came from, no man would be ungentlemanly enough to refuse to accompany a lady anywhere she might ask him to go."

The flush on his face grew. But he refused to become disconcerted. "I reckon to be as much of a gentleman as any Texas guy," he said. "But I expect, though," he added; "to prove that to you I'll have to trail along after you."

"Of course," she said, the corners of her mouth dimpling a little.

He went down to the corral, roped the most gentle and best appearing one of the two horses he had bought in Lazette, caught up his own horse, Blackleg, and brought them to the stable, where he saddled and bridled them. Before putting the bridle on her horse, however, he found an opportunity to work off part of the resentment which had accumulated in him over her reference to his conduct.

After adjusting the saddle, paying particular attention to the cinches, he straightened and looked at her.

"Do you reckon to have a bridle that belongs to that right pretty saddle an' suit of yourn?" he asked.

She cast a swift glance about her and blushed. "Oh," she said; "I have forgotten it! It is in my room!"

"I reckon I'd get it if I was thinkin' of goin' ridin'," he said. "Some folks seem to think that when you're ridin' a horse a bridle is right handy."

"Well," she said, smiling at him as she went out the stable door; "it has been a long time since I have had these things on, and perhaps I was a little nervous."

At this reference to her past the pulse of pity which he had felt for her before again shot over him. He had seen a quick sadness in her eyes, lurking behind the smile.

"I reckon you've been stayin' in the house too much," he said gruffly.

She hesitated, going out of the door, to look back at him, astonishment and something more subtle glinting her eyes. He saw it and frowned.

"It's twelve miles to the Diamond K," he suggested; "an' twelve back. If you're figgerin' on ridin' that distance an' takin' time between to look at any cattle mebbe you'd better get a move on."

She was out of the door before he had ceased speaking and in an incredibly short time was back, a little breathless, her face flushed as though she had been running.

He put the bridle on her horse, led it out, and condescended to hold the stirrup for her, a service which she acknowledged with a flashing smile that brought a reluctant grin to his face.

Then, swinging into his own saddle, he urged Blackleg after her, for she had not waited for him, riding down past the ranchhouse and out into the little stretch of plain that reached to the river.

They rode steadily, talking little, for Calumet deliberately kept a considerable distance between them, thus showing her that though courtesy had forced him to accompany her it could not demand that he should also become a mark at which she could direct conversation.

It was noon when they came in sight of the Diamond K ranch buildings. They were on a wide plain near the river and what grass there was was sun-scorched and rustled dryly under the tread of their horses' hoofs. Then Calumet added a word to the few that he had already spoken during the ride.

"I reckon Kelton must have been loco to try to raise cattle in a God-forsaken hole like this," he said with a sneer.

"That he was foolish enough to do so will result to our advantage," she replied.

"Meanin' what?"

"That we will be able to buy what cattle we want more cheaply than we would were Kelton's range what it should be," she returned, watching his face.

He looked at her vindictively. "You're one of them kind of humans that like to take advantage of a man's misfortune," he said.

"That is all in the viewpoint," she defended. "I didn't bring misfortune to Kelton. And I consider that in buying his cattle I am doing him a favor. I am not gloating over the opportunity—it is merely business."

"Why didn't you offer Kelton the Lazy Y range?" he said with a twisting grin.

She could not keep the triumph out of her voice. "I did," she answered. "He wouldn't take it because he didn't like you—doesn't like you. He told me that he knew you when you were a boy and you weren't exactly his style."

Thus eliminated as a conversationalist, and defeated in his effort to cast discredit upon her, Calumet maintained a sneering silence.

But when they rode up to the Diamond K ranchhouse, he flung a parting word at her.

"I reckon you can go an' talk cattle to your man, Kelton," he said. "I'm afraid that if he goes gassin' to me I'll smash his face in."

He rode back to the horse corral, which they had passed, to look again at a horse inside which had attracted his attention.

The animal was glossy black except for a little patch of white above the right fore-fetlock; he was tall, rangy, clean-limbed, high-spirited, and as Calumet sat in the saddle near the corral gate watching him he trotted impudently up to the bars and looked him over. Then, after a moment, satisfying his curiosity, he wheeled, slashed at the gate with both hoofs, and with a snort, that in the horse language might have meant contempt or derision, cavorted away.

Calumet's admiring glance followed him. He sat in the saddle for half an hour, eyeing the horse critically, and at the end of that time, noting that Betty had returned to the ranchhouse with Kelton, probably having looked at some of the stock she had come to see—Calumet had observed on his approach that the cattle corral was well filled with white Herefords—he wheeled Blackleg and rode over to them.

"Mr. Kelton has offered me four hundred head of cattle at a reasonable figure," Betty told him on his approach. "All that remains is for you to confirm it."

"I reckon you're the boss," said Calumet. He looked at Kelton, and evidently his fear that he would "smash" the tatter's face had vanished—perhaps in a desire to possess the black horse, which had seized him.

"I reckon you ain't sellin' that black horse?" he said.

"Cheap," said Kelton quickly.

"How cheap?"

"Fifty dollars."

"I reckon he's my horse," said Calumet. "The boss of the Lazy Y will pay for him when she hands you the coin for your cattle." He scrutinized Kelton's face closely, having caught a note in his voice which had interested him. "Why you wantin' to get rid of the black?" he questioned.

"He ain't been rode," said Kelton; "he won't be rode. You can back out of that sale now, if you like. But I'm tellin' you the gospel truth. There ain't no man in the Territory can ride him. Miskell, my regular bronc-buster, is the slickest man that ever forked a horse, an' he's layin' down in the bunkhouse right now, nursin' a leg which that black devil busted last week. An' men is worth more to me than horses right now. I reckon," he finished, eyeing Calumet with a certain vindictiveness, which had undoubtedly lasted over from his acquaintance with the latter in the old days; "that you ain't a heap smart at