CHAPTER III
QUEEN OF WHAT?
Heedless of the men behind him, Ashton rode off with his ardent gaze fixed admiringly upon his companion. The more he looked at her the more astonished and gratified he was to have found so charming a girl in this raw wilderness.
As a city man, he might have considered the healthy color that glowed under the tan of her cheeks a trifle too pronounced, had it not been offset by the delicate mold of her features. Her eyes were as blue as alpine forget-me-nots.
Though she sat astride and the soft coils of her chestnut hair were covered with a broad-brimmed felt hat, he was puzzled to find that there really was nothing of the Wild West cowgirl in her costume and bearing. Her modest gray riding dress was cut in the very latest style. If her manner differed from that of most young ladies of his acquaintance, it was only in her delightful frankness and total absence of affectation. Yet she could not be a city girl on a visit, for she sat her horse with the erect, long-stirruped, graceful, yielding seat peculiar to riders of the cattle ranges.
“Do you know,” he gave voice to his curiosity, as she directed their course slantingly down the ridge away from Deep Cañon, “I am simply dying to learn, Miss Chuckie–”
“Perhaps you had better make it ‘Miss Knowles,’” she suggested, with a quiet smile that checked the familiarity of his manner.
“Ah, yes–pardon me!–‘Miss Knowles,’ of course,” he murmured. “But, you know, so unusual a name–”
“You mean Chuckie?” she asked. “It formerly was quite common in the West–was often used as a nickname. My real name is Isobel. I understand that Chuckie comes from the Spanish Chiquita.”
“Chiquita!” he exclaimed. “But that is not a regular name. It is only a term of endearment, like Nina. And you say Chuckie comes from Chiquita? Chiquita–dear one!”
His large dark eyes glowed at her brilliant with audacious admiration. Her color deepened, but she replied with perfect composure: “You see why I prefer to be addressed as ‘Miss Knowles’–by you.”
“Yet you permitted that common cowpuncher to call you Miss Chuckie.”
The girl smiled ironically. “For one thing, Mr. Ashton, I have known Kid Gowan over eight years, and, for another, he is hardly a common cowpuncher.”
“He looks ordinary enough to me.”
“Well, well!” she rallied. “I should have thought that even to the innocent gaze of a tenderfoot–Let me hasten to explain that the common or garden variety of cowshepherd is to be distinguished in many respects from his predecessor of the Texas trail.”
“Texas trail?” he rejoined. “Now I know you’re trying to string me. This Gowan can’t be much older than I am.”
The girl dropped her bantering tone, and answered soberly: “He is only twenty-five, and yet he is a full generation older than you. He was born and raised in a cow camp. He is one of the few men of the type that remain to link the range of today with the vanished world of the cattle frontier.”
“Yet you say that the fellow is only my age?”
“In years, yes. But in type he belongs to the generation that is past–the generation of longhorns, long drives, long Colt’s, and short lives; of stampedes, and hats like yours, badmen, and Injins.”
“Surely you cannot mean that this–You called him ‘Kid.’”
“Kid Gowan,” she confirmed. “Yes, he holds to the old traditions even in that. There are six notches on the hilt of his ‘gun,’ if you count the two little ones he nicked for his brace of Utes.”
“What! He is a real Indian fighter, like Kit Carson?”
“Oh, no, it was merely a band of hide hunters that came over the line from Utah, and Mr. Gowan helped the game warden run them back to their reservation.”
“He actually killed two of them?”
“Yes,” replied the girl, her gravity deepening to a concerned frown. “The worst of it is that I’m not altogether certain it was necessary. Men out here, as a rule, think much too little of the life of an Indian.”
“Ah!” murmured Ashton. “Two Indians. But didn’t you speak of six notches?”
“Six,” confirmed the girl, her brow partly clearing. “The others were different. Three were rustlers. The sheriff’s posse overtook them. Both sides were firing. Kid circled around and shot three. He happened to have a long-range rifle. Daddy says they threw up their hands when the first one fell; but Kid explained to me that he was too far away to see it.”
“Ah!” murmured Ashton the second time, and he put up his hand to the hole in the front of his sombrero.
“The last was two years ago,” went on the girl. “There was a dispute over a maverick. Kid was tried and acquitted on his plea of self-defense. There were no witnesses. He claimed that the other man drew first. Two empty shells were found in the other man’s revolver, and only one in Kid’s. That cleared him.”
Ashton took off his hat and stared at the holes where the heavy forty-four bullet had gone in and gone out. He was silent.
“You see, poor Kid has been unfortunate,” remarked the girl, as she headed her pony down over the edge of the mesa. “That time with the rustlers, all the posse were firing, and he just happened to be the one that got the best aim; and the time with the Indians, I’m sure he did not shoot to kill. It just happened that way. He told me so himself.”
Ashton ran his tongue over his lip. “Yes–I suppose so,” he muttered.
“Kid has all the good qualities and only a few of the faults of the old-time cowboys,” went on the girl. “He is almost fiercely loyal to Daddy’s interests. That’s why he led a raid on a sheep outfit, four years ago, when almost half of a large flock were run over into Deep Cañon–poor innocent beasts! Daddy was furious with Kid; but there was no legal proof as to who were members of the attacking party, and the sheep were destroying our range. All of Daddy’s cattle would have starved.”
“He was not punished?” murmured Ashton.
“Daddy could not be expected to discharge him, could he, when Kid did it to save our range? You see, it was just because he was so very loyal. You must not think from these things that he–It is true he is suspicious of strangers, but he always has been very kind and gentle to me. I am very fond of him.”
“You are?” exclaimed Ashton, stirred from his uneasy depression. “I should hardly have thought him the kind to interest a girl like you.”
“Really?” she bantered. “Why not? I have lived on the range ever since I was fourteen.”
He stared at her incredulously. “Since you were fourteen?”
“For nine years,” she added, smiling at his astonishment.
“But–it can’t be,” he protested, his eyes on her stylish costume. “At least, not all the time.”
She nodded at him encouragingly. “So you can see–a little. Nearly all my winters have been spent in Denver, except one in Europe.”
“Europe?” he repeated.
“We didn’t cross in a cattle boat,” she flashed back at him, dimpling mischievously. “Nor did I go as the Queen of the Rancho, or of the Roundup, or even of the Wild and Woolly Outlaw Band.”
He flushed with mortification. “I am only too well aware, Miss Knowles, how you must regard me.”
“Oh, I do not regard you at all–as yet,” she bantered. “But of course I could not expect you to know that Daddy’s sister is one of the Sacred Thirty-six.”
“Sacred–? Is that one of the orders of nuns?”
“None whatever,” she punned. In the same moment she drew a most solemn looking face. “My deah Mistah Ashton, I will have you to understand my reference was to that most select coterie which comprises Denver’s Real Society.”
“Indeed!” he said, with a subtle alteration in his tone and manner. “You say that your aunt is one of–”
“My aunt by adoption,” she corrected.
“Adoption?”
“I am not Daddy’s natural daughter. He adopted me,” explained the girl in her frank way.
“Yes?” asked Ashton, plainly eager to learn more of her history.
Without seeming to observe this, she adroitly balked his curiosity–“So, you see, Daddy’s sister is only my aunt by adoption. Still, she has been very, very good to me; though I love Daddy and this free outdoor life so much that I insist on coming back home every spring.”
“Ah, yes, I see,” he replied. “Really, Miss Knowles, you must think me a good deal of a dub.”
“Oh, well, allowances should be made for a tenderfoot,” she bantered.
“At least I recognized your queenliness, even if at first I did mistake what you were queen of,” he thrust back.
“So you still insist I’m a queen? Of what, pray?”
“Of Hearts!” he answered with fervor.
His daring was rewarded with a lovely blush. But she was only momentarily disconcerted.
“I am not so sure of that,” she replied. “Though it’s not Queen of Spades, because I do not have to work; and it can’t be Diamonds, because Daddy is no more than comfortably well to do–only six thousand head of stock. But as for Hearts–No, I’m sure it must be Clubs; I do so love to knock around. Really, if ever they break up this range, it will break my heart same time.”
“Break up the range? How do you mean?”
“Put it under irrigation and turn it into orchards and farms, as they have done so many places here on the Western Slope. You know, Colorado apples and peaches are fast becoming famous even in Europe.”
“I do not wonder, not in the least–if I am to judge from a certain sample of the Colorado peach,” he ventured.
This time she did not blush. “I am quite serious, Mr. Ashton,” she reproved him. “Daddy owns only five sections. The rest of his range is public land. If settlers should come in and homestead it, he would have to quit the cattle business. You cannot realize how fearfully we are watching the irrigation projects–all the Government reclamation work, and the private dams, too. There seems to be no water that can be put on Dry Mesa, yet the engineers are doing such wonderful things these days.”
Ashton straightened on his saddle. “That is quite true, Miss Knowles. You know, I myself am an engineer.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed in dismay. “You, an engineer? Have you come here to see if our mesa can be irrigated?”
“No, indeed, no, I shall not do that,” he replied. “I have not the slightest thought of such a project. I am merely out for sport.”
She eyed him uncertainly. “But–We get all the reports–There is an Ashton connected with that wonderful Zariba Dam, just being finished in Arizona.”
“That is my father. He is interested in it with a Mr. Leslie. They are financing the project. But I have nothing to do with it, nothing whatever, I assure you. The engineer is another man, a fellow named–”
He paused as if unable to remember. The girl looked at him with a shade of disappointment in her clear eyes.
“A Mr. Blake–Thomas Blake,” she supplied the name. “I thought you might have known him.”
“Ah–Blake?” he murmured hesitatingly. “Why, yes, I did at one time have somewhat of an acquaintance with him.”
“You did?” she cried, her eyes brilliant with excitement. “Oh, tell me! I–” She faltered under his surprised stare, and went on rather lamely: “You see, I–we have been immensely interested in the Zariba Dam. The reports all describe it as an extraordinary work of engineering. And so we have been curious to learn something about the engineer.”
“But if you’re so opposed to irrigation projects?” he thrust.
“That makes no difference,” she parried. “We–Daddy and I–cannot but admire such a remarkable engineer.”
Ashton shrugged. “The dam was a big thing. I fail to see why you should admire Blake just because he happened to blunder on the idea that solved the difficulty.”
“You do not like him,” she said with frank directness.
He hesitated and looked away. When he replied it was with evident reluctance: “No, I do not. He is–You would hardly admire him personally, even though he did bully Genevieve Leslie into marrying him.”
“He is married?” exclaimed the girl.
“No wonder you are surprised,” said Ashton. “It was the most amazing thing imaginable–she the daughter of H. V. Leslie, one of our wealthiest financiers, and he a rough, uncouth drunkard.”
“Drunkard?” almost screamed the girl. “No, no, not drunkard! I cannot believe it!”
“He certainly was one until just before Genevieve married him,” insisted Ashton. “I hear he has managed to keep sober since.”
“O-o-oh!” sighed Miss Isobel, making no effort to conceal her vast relief. She attempted a smile. “I am so glad to hear that he is all right now. Of course he must be!.. You say he married an heiress?”
“She is worth three millions in her own right, and Leslie is as daft over him as she is. Leslie and my father are the ones who backed him on the Zariba Dam.”
“How interesting! And I suppose Mr. Blake is a Western man. So many of the best engineers come from the West.”
Ashton looked at her suspiciously. He could not make out her interest in Blake. She apparently had come to regard the engineer as a sort of hero. Yet why should she continue to inquire about him, now that she knew he was a married man?
“I’m sure I cannot tell you,” he replied, somewhat stiffly. “The fellow seems to have come from nowhere. Had it not been for an accident, he would never have got within speaking distance of Genevieve, but they happened to be shipwrecked together alone–on the coast of Africa.”
“Wrecked?–shipwrecked? How perfectly glorious!”
“I wouldn’t mind it myself–with you!” he flashed back.
“I might,” she bantered. “This Mr. Blake, I imagine, was hardly a tenderfoot.”
“No, he was a roughneck,” muttered Ashton.
“You do not like him,” she remarked the second time.
“Why should I, a low fellow like that? I’ve heard that he even brags that he started in the Chicago slums.”
The girl put her hand to her bosom. “In the–the Chicago slums!” she half whispered.
“No wonder you are surprised,” said Ashton. “Anyone would presume that he would keep such a disgrace to himself. It shows what he is–absolutely devoid of good taste.”
“Is he–What does he look like?” she eagerly inquired.
Ashton shrugged. “Pardon me. I prefer not to talk any more about the fellow.”
Miss Isobel checked her curiosity. “Very well, Mr. Ashton.” She looked around, and suddenly flourished her leathern quirt. “Look–there are Kid and Daddy trying to head us. Come on, if you want a race. I’m going to beat them down to Dry Fork.”
CHAPTER IV
DOWNHILL AND UP
The lash of the quirt fell with a swish on the flank of the girl’s pony. He did not wait for a second hint, but started down the steep slope “on the jump.” Before Ashton realized what was happening, his own horse was following at the same breakneck pace.
Down plunged the two ponies–down, down, down the sharply pitched mountain side, leaping logs and stones, crashing through brush, scrambling or slithering stiff-legged down rock slides. It was a wild race, a race that would have been utterly foolhardy with any other horses than these mountain bred cow ponies. A single misstep would have sent horse and rider rolling for yards, unless sooner brought up against tree or rock.
Most of the color had left Ashton’s cheeks, but his full lips were set in resolute lines. His gaze alertly took in the ground before his horse and at the same time the girl’s graceful, swaying figure. Fortunately he knew enough to let his horse pick his own way. But such a way as it was! Had not the two animals been as surefooted as goats and as quick as cats, both must have pitched head over heels, not once, but a score of times.
They had leaped down over numbers of rocks and logs and ledges, and the girl had not cast back a single glance to see if Ashton was following. But as they plunged down an open slope she suddenly twisted about and flung up a warning hand.
“Here’s a jump!” she cried–as though they had not been jumping every few yards since the beginning of that mad descent.
Hardly had she faced about again when her pony leaped and dropped with her clear out of sight. Ashton gasped and started to draw rein. He was too late. Three strides brought his horse to a ledge fully six feet high. The beast leaped over the edge without making the slightest effort to check himself.
Ashton uttered a startled cry, but poised himself for the shock with the cleverness of a skillful rider. His pony landed squarely, and at once started on again as if nothing unusual had happened.
The girl was already racing down the lower slope, which was more moderate, or rather, less immoderate than that above the ledge. She looked around and waved her hand gayly when she saw that Ashton had kept his seat.
The salute so fired him that he gave his pony the spur and dashed recklessly down to overtake her. At last he raced alongside and a little past her. She looked at his overridden pony and drew rein.
“Hold on,” she said. “Better pull up a bit. You don’t want to blow your hawss. ’Tisn’t everyone can take that jump as neatly as he did.”
“But the others?” he panted–“they’ll beat us!”
“They cut down to the right. It’s nothing to worry about if they do head us. They’ve got the best hawsses. We’ll jog the rest of the way.”
“Of course,” he hastened to agree, “if you prefer.”
“I’d prefer to lope uphill and down, but–” she nodded towards his pony’s heaving flanks–“no use riding a willing hawss to death.”
“No danger of that with this old nag. He’s tough as a mule,” Ashton assured her, though he followed her example by pulling his mount in to a walk.
“A mule knows enough to balk when he’s got enough,” she informed him.
He did not reply. With the lessening of his excitement habit sent his hand to his open packet of cigarettes. He had not smoked since before shooting the calf. As they came down into the shallow valley between the foot of the mesa and a parallel line of low rocky hills he could wait no longer. His lighter was already half raised to the gilt-tipped cigarette when it was checked by etiquette. He bowed to the girl as a matter of form.
“Ah, pardon me–if you have no objections,” he said.
“I have,” was her unexpected reply.
“Er–what?” he asked, his finger on the spring of the lighter.
“You inquired if I have any objections,” she answered. “I told you the truth. I dislike cigarettes most intensely.”
“But–but–” he stammered, completely taken aback, “don’t your cowboys all smoke?”
“Not cigarettes–where I ever see them,” she said.
“And cigars or pipes?” he queried.
“One has to concede something to masculine weakness,” she sighed.
“Unfortunately I have no cigars with me, not even at my camp, and a pipe is so slow,” he complained.
“Oh, pray, do not deprive yourself on my account,” she said. “You’ll find the cut between those two hills about as short a way to your camp as this one, if you prefer your cigarettes to my company.”
“Crool maid!” he reproached, not altogether jestingly. He even looked across at the gap through the hills to which she was pointing. Then he saw the disdain in her blue eyes. He took the cigarette from his lips, eyed it regretfully, and flung it away with a petulant fillip.
“There!” he said. Meeting her amused smile, he added in the injured tone of a spoiled child. “You don’t realize what a compliment that is.”
“What?–abstaining for a half hour or so? If I asked you to break off entirely, and you did it, I would consider that a real compliment.”
“I should say so!”
“But I am by no means sure that I would care to ask you,” she bantered.
“You’re not? Why, may I inquire?”
“I do not like to make useless requests.”
“Useless!” he exclaimed, his self-esteem stung by her raillery. “Do you think I cannot quit smoking them?”
“I think you do not care to try.”
Impulsively he snatched out a package of his expensive cigarettes and tossed it over his shoulder. Another and another and still others followed in rapid succession, until he had exhausted his supply.
“How’s that?” he demanded her approval.
“Well, it’s not so bad for a start-off,” she answered with an absence of enthusiasm that dashed him from his pose of self-abnegation.
“You don’t realize what that means,” he complained.
“It means, jilt Miss Nicotine in haste, and repent at leisure.”
“You’re ragging me! You ought to be particularly nice to me. I did it for you.”
“Thanks awfully. But I didn’t ask you to do it, you know.”
“Oh, now, that’s hardly–when I did it because of what you said.”
“Well, then, I promise to be nice to you until events do us part. That will be in about five minutes. Over there is Dry Fork Gulch. The waterhole is just down around this hill.”
Ashton took his ardent gaze off the girl’s face long enough to glance to his left. He recognized the tremendous gorge in the face of the mountain side that he had tried to ascend the previous day. It ran in with a moderately inclined bottom for nearly a mile, and then scaled up to the top of High Mesa in steep slopes and sheer ledges.
His eyes followed the dry gravelly creek bed around to the right, and he nodded: “Yes, my camp is just over the corner of those crags. But surely, Miss Knowles, you will not end our acquaintance there.”
She met his appealing look with a level glance. “Seriously, Mr. Ashton, don’t you think you had better move camp to another section? It seems to me you have done quite enough unseasonable deer hunting.”
Without waiting for him to reply, she urged her horse into a lope. His own mount was too jaded for a quick start. When he overtook the girl she had rounded the craggy hill on their right and was in sight of a scattered grove of boxelders below a dike of dark colored trap rock that outcropped across the bed of the creek.
Above the natural dam made by this dike the valley was bedded up with sand and large gravel washed down by the torrential rush of spring freshets. Below it the same wild floods, leaping down in a twenty-foot fall, had gouged out a pothole so wide and deep that it was never empty of water even in the driest seasons.