The Light of the Western Stars, Zane Grey [e reader pdf best .TXT] 📗
- Author: Zane Grey
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“Is he a cowboy?” asked Helen.
“Indeed yes!” replied Madeline, with a little laugh. “You will think so when Stillwell gets hold of you and begins to talk.”
Madeline found it necessary to explain who Stillwell was, and what he thought of Stewart, and, while she was about it, of her own accord she added a few details of Stewart's fame.
“El Capitan. How interesting!” mused Helen. “What does he look like?”
“He is superb.”
Florence handed the field-glass to Helen and bade her look.
“Oh, thank you!” said Helen, as she complied. “There. I see him. Indeed, he is superb. What a magnificent horse! How still he stands! Why, he seems carved in stone.”
“Let me look?” said Dorothy Coombs, eagerly.
Helen gave her the glass.
“You can look, Dot, but that's all. He's mine. I saw him first.”
Whereupon Madeline's feminine guests held a spirited contest over the field-glass, and three of them made gay, bantering boasts not to consider Helen's self-asserted rights. Madeline laughed with the others while she watched the dark figure of Stewart and his black outline against the sky. There came over her a thought not by any means new or strange—she wondered what was in Stewart's mind as he stood there in the solitude and faced the desert and the darkening west. Some day she meant to ask him. Presently he turned the horse and rode down into the shadow creeping up the mesa.
“Majesty, have you planned any fun, any excitement for us?” asked Helen. She was restless, nervous, and did not seem to be able to sit still a moment.
“You will think so when I get through with you,” replied Madeline.
“What, for instance?” inquired Helen and Dot and Mrs. Beck, in unison. Edith Wayne smiled her interest.
“Well, I am not counting rides and climbs and golf; but these are necessary to train you for trips over into Arizona. I want to show you the desert and the Aravaipa Canyon. We have to go on horseback and pack our outfit. If any of you are alive after those trips and want more we shall go up into the mountains. I should like very much to know what you each want particularly.”
“I'll tell you,” replied Helen, promptly. “Dot will be the same out here as she was in the East. She wants to look bashfully down at her hand—a hand imprisoned in another, by the way—and listen to a man talk poetry about her eyes. If cowboys don't make love that way Dot's visit will be a failure. Now Elsie Beck wants solely to be revenged upon us for dragging her out here. She wants some dreadful thing to happen to us. I don't know what's in Edith's head, but it isn't fun. Bobby wants to be near Elsie, and no more. Boyd wants what he has always wanted—the only thing he ever wanted that he didn't get. Castleton has a horrible bloodthirsty desire to kill something.”
“I declare now, I want to ride and camp out, also,” protested Castleton.
“As for myself,” went on Helen, “I want—Oh, if I only knew what it is that I want! Well, I know I want to be outdoors, to get into the open, to feel sun and wind, to burn some color into my white face. I want some flesh and blood and life. I am tired out. Beyond all that I don't know very well. I'll try to keep Dot from attaching all the cowboys to her train.”
“What a diversity of wants!” said Madeline.
“Above all, Majesty, we want something to happen,” concluded Helen, with passionate finality.
“My dear sister, maybe you will have your wish fulfilled,” replied Madeline, soberly. “Edith, Helen has made me curious about your especial yearning.”
“Majesty, it is only that I wanted to be with you for a while,” replied this old friend.
There was in the wistful reply, accompanied by a dark and eloquent glance of eyes, what told Madeline of Edith's understanding, of her sympathy, and perhaps a betrayal of her own unquiet soul. It saddened Madeline. How many women might there not be who had the longing to break down the bars of their cage, but had not the spirit!
XIII. Cowboy Golf
In the whirl of the succeeding days it was a mooted question whether Madeline's guests or her cowboys or herself got the keenest enjoyment out of the flying time. Considering the sameness of the cowboys' ordinary life, she was inclined to think they made the most of the present. Stillwell and Stewart, however, had found the situation trying. The work of the ranch had to go on, and some of it got sadly neglected. Stillwell could not resist the ladies any more than he could resist the fun in the extraordinary goings-on of the cowboys. Stewart alone kept the business of cattle-raising from a serious setback. Early and late he was in the saddle, driving the lazy Mexicans whom he had hired to relieve the cowboys.
One morning in June Madeline was sitting on the porch with her merry friends when Stillwell appeared on the corral path. He had not come to consult Madeline for several days—an omission so unusual as to be remarked.
“Here comes Bill—in trouble,” laughed Florence.
Indeed, he bore some faint resemblance to a thundercloud as he approached the porch; but the greetings he got from Madeline's party, especially from Helen and Dorothy, chased away the blackness from his face and brought the wonderful wrinkling smile.
“Miss Majesty, sure I'm a sad demoralized old cattleman,” he said, presently. “An' I'm in need of a heap of help.”
“What's wrong now?” asked Madeline, with her encouraging smile.
“Wal, it's so amazin' strange what cowboys will do. I jest am about to give up. Why, you might say my cowboys were all on strike for vacations. What do you think of that? We've changed the shifts, shortened hours, let one an' another off duty, hired Greasers, an', in fact, done everythin' that could be thought of. But this vacation idee growed worse. When Stewart set his foot down, then the boys begin to get sick. Never in my born days as a cattleman have I heerd of so many diseases. An' you ought to see how lame an' crippled an' weak many of the boys have got all of a sudden. The idee of a cowboy comin' to me with a sore finger an' askin' to be let off for a day! There's Booly. Now I've knowed a hoss to fall all over him, an' onct he rolled down a canyon. Never bothered him at all. He's got a blister on his heel, a ridin' blister, an' he says it's goin' to blood-poisonin' if he doesn't rest. There's Jim Bell. He's developed what he says is spinal mengalootis, or some such like. There's Frankie Slade. He swore he had scarlet fever because
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