CHAPTER III
When the first faint edges of light outlined the coming day, she sat bolt upright and stared about her. As far as eye could see was the tortuous trail leading up sculptured hills that were the preface to the mother mountains of the West.
The wonder-stare in her eyes gradually disappeared as memory awakened. Down beyond the trees in a little valley the sheriff was attending to a fire he had built.
She arose, cramped and unrefreshed, and hastened toward the welcome blaze.
“Good morning. Any gasoline yet?”
“No; not an automobile passed during the night.”
“How do you know? Didn’t you sleep?”
“No.”
“Guarding your car and me? No!” she added quickly. “That wasn’t the reason. Ihad all the robes and your coat. You had to stay awake to keep warm.”
He smiled slightly and spoke in the hushed voice that seems in keeping with the dawn.
“I’ve been used to night watches—tending sheep and cattle on the plains. What’s the difference whether it’s night or day so long as you sleep somewhere in the twenty-four hour zone?”
“I never was up ahead of the sun before,” she said with a little shiver, as she came close to the fire.
“I am heating over the coffee that was left. That will make you feel better.”
“I suppose there isn’t any water hereabouts to wash in. You know they teach us to be sanitary in the reformatories.”
He pointed to a jar.
“I always carry some in the car. Help yourself.”
“Arctic ablutions never appeal to me,” she said when she had used the cold water freely and returned to the fire. “I found anotherleft-over in the shape of a sandwich minus the pork, so we can each have a slice of toast with our coffee.”
She put a piece of bread on a forked stick and held it out to the blaze. He did the same with the other half of the sandwich. Then they partook of a meagre but welcome breakfast.
“Look!” he said presently in an awed voice.
The sun was sending a glorious searchlight of gold over the highest hill-line.
“Swell, isn’t it?” she commented cheerily.
Her choice of adjectives repelled any further comments on Nature by him.
“I’m not used to sleeping out,” she said, as he carefully raked over the remains of the fire, “and it didn’t seem to rest me. Thank you for making me so comfortable, Mr. Walters.”
She spoke gently; altogether her manner was so much more subdued this morning that he felt the same wave of pity he had feltwhen Bender had first mentioned her case to him.
“I am sorry,” he said, “that you had to stay out here all night. It was my fault; but you will have a more comfortable resting place to-night.”
A sound was heard: a modern, welcome sound, breaking in distractingly on the primeval silence. Kurt hastened to the road and saw the encouraging prelude of dust. The passing tourist gave him the requisite supply of gasoline and continued on his way.
“Come on, Pen!” called the sheriff.
She suppressed a smile as she followed.
“You called me by my first name,” she couldn’t resist reminding him.
“I didn’t know your last one,” he responded quickly and resentfully as he helped her into the car.
“Let me think. I’ve had so many aliases—suppose I make out a list and let you take your choice. Most of my pals call me ‘The Thief.’”
The look of yesterday came back to his eyes at her flippant tone and words.
“Don’t!” he said harshly. “This morning I had forgotten what you were.”
“I wish I could,” she said forlornly. “We won’t talk about it any more. Play I am pink perfect until we get to this ‘first lady of the land’ up at Top Hill. Oh, but motoring in the dawn is shivery! I loathe early morning when you get up to it. If youstay upfor it, it’s different.”
He looked down at her quickly.
In the crisp morning air, her little figure was shaking as if with a chill. Her face was very white, and there was a bluish look about her mouth.
He stopped the car suddenly.
She smiled faintly at his look of concern.
“I’m all right,” she said reassuringly, a spark of raillery again showing in her eyes before they closed, and she fell limply against him.
When she had recovered the consciousnessshe had lost but momentarily, he was vigorously rubbing her hands.
“How warm and strong your hands feel,” she said with a little sigh of content. “I never did anything so out of date before. I couldn’t help it.”
“You are nearly frozen,” he said brusquely. “Why don’t you wear more clothes?”
“I am wearing all I have,” she said plaintively, with an attempt at a giggle.
A sudden recollection came to him. From under the seat he brought forth a heavy, gray sweater.
“I forgot I had this with me. Put it on.”
“It’s a slip-on. I’ll have to take off my hat and coat to get into it.”
When she removed her soft, shabby, battered hat which she had worn well down over her eyes even while she slept, her hair, rippling bronze and golden lights, fell about her face and shoulders in semi-curls.
He helped her into the sweater.
“It’s sure snug and warm,” she saidapprovingly, as her head came out of the opening. “I won’t need my coat.”
“No; there’s no warmth in it,” he said, looking disdainfully at the thin, cheap garment. “Throw it away.”
“With pleasure,” she replied gaily. “Here’s to my winter garment of repentance.”
She flung the coat out on the road.
“What did you say?” he asked perplexedly.
“Nothing original. Just some words I st-t—I mean, borrowed.”
She fastened back her hair and picked up her hat.
“Don’t put that on!” he exclaimed, making another search under the seat and bringing forth a soft cap. She set it jauntily on her curls.
“How do you feel now? Well enough to ride on?”
“Yes; I am feeling ‘fair and warmer’ every minute.”
When the car started, she relapsed intosilence. The sunshine was flooding the treeless hills and mellowing the cool, clean air. Up and down, as far as the eye could follow, which was very far in this land of great distances, the trail sought the big dominant hills that broke the sky-line before them. The outlook was restful, hopeful, fortifying.
“How are you—all right?” he asked presently.
“Perfectly all right. It’s grand up here in all these high spots.”
“Wait until we reach the hills around our ranch,” he boasted. Then he laughed shortly. “I say ‘our.’ I’m only the foreman.”
“What are you going to tellherabout me?” she asked curiously, after another silence.
He slackened the pace and looked at her closely. The sweater and the sunshine had brought a faint tinge of wild-rose color to the transparency of her skin. The flippancy and boldness so prominent in her eyes the daybefore had disappeared. She looked more as she had when she was asleep in the moonlight. A wave of kindness and brotherliness swept over him.
“I am going to tell her,” he said gently, “that you are a poor little girl who needs a friend.”
“Is that all you will tell her?”
“You may tell her as much or as little of your story as you think you should.”
“You are a good man, but,” she added thoughtfully, “the best of men don’t understand women’s ways toward each other. If I tell her my sordid little story, she may not want to help me—at least, not want to keep me up here in her home. I’ve not found women very helpful.”
“She will help you and keep you, because—” he hesitated, and then continued earnestly, “before she was married, she was a settlement worker in a large city and she understood such—”
“As I,” she finished. “I know thesettlement workers. They write you up—or down—in a sort of a Rogue Record, and you are classified, indexed, filed and treated by a system.”
“She isn’t that kind!” he protested indignantly. “She does her work by her heart, not by system. Have you ever really tried to reform?”
“Yes,” she exclaimed eagerly. “I left Chicago for that purpose. I couldn’t find work. I was cold and hungry; pawned everything they would take and got shabby like this,” looking down disdainfully at herself, “but I didn’t steal, not even food. I would have starved first. Then I was arrested up here for stealing. I wasn’t guilty. Bender had no case, really; but he wouldn’t give me a square deal or listen to anything in my favor, because my record was against me. You can’t live down a record. There is no use trying.”
“Yes, there is!” he declared emphatically. “I have always thought a thief incurable, but I believeshecould perform the miracle.”
“How old is she?” demanded Pen suddenly.
“I don’t know,” he answered vaguely, as if her age had never occurred to him before. “She has been married ten years.”
“Oh! Did she marry the right man?”
“She certainly did. Kingdon is a prince.”
“Any children?”
“Three; two little fellows as fine as are made, and a girl.”
“I adore children.”
“I am glad to hear you say that. Every good woman loves children.”
“And you really think there’s the makings of a good woman in me?”
“Yes; I think so,” he answered earnestly, “and if there’s but a spark of goodness in you, she will find it and fan it to a glow.”
She made a wry little grimace which fortunately he did not see.
“This goodness is nauseating me,” she thought. “I shall beat it back about to-morrow.”
“Look!” he cried, as the road made a sharp curve. “There it is!”
“You can lift your eyes to the hills! What a love of a place—way up on tiptoes. I’ll be the little fish out of water up there!”
Top Hill Tavern was on a small plateau at the summit of one of the hills. The ranch-house, long, low and fanciful in design, connected by a covered portico with the kitchen, dairies and buildings, was misleading in name, for a succession of higher hills was in sight. A vined pergola, flower gardens, swings, tennis courts and croquet grounds gave the place a most unranch-like appearance.
As they rode up to the entrance porch, a woman came out of the house, and instantly the big, appraising eyes of the little newcomer felt that here was a type unknown to her. She was slender, not very tall, but with a poise and dignity of manner that compelled attention. Her eyes were gray; her lashes, brows and hair quite dark. There was a serenity and repose of manner abouther—the Madonna expression of gentleness—but with an added force.
“We looked for you last night, Kurt,” she said in a voice, low and winning.
“Ran out of gasoline and had to spend the night on the road,” he explained. “Mrs. Kingdon, this is a little girl—”
She didn’t give him the opportunity to finish.
“Come in out of the sun,” she urged.
Pen stepped from the car. There was no consciousness in the beautiful eyes of the “best woman in the world” that she was aware of the shabby, tan shoes, the cheap, faded and worn skirt, or the man’s sweater and cap.
Pen’s eyes had grown dark and thoughtful.
“Before I go in,” she said turning to Kurt, “you must tell her who I am. Not what you said you were going to tell her, but where you found me and from what you saved me.”
His face flushed.
“My dear little girl,” said the womanquickly, “I don’t care to know—yet. It is enough that Kurt brought you.”
“Mrs. Kingdon,” said Kurt awkwardly but earnestly, “she is a poor girl who needs a friend.”
“We all need a friend some time or other. Come in with me.”
She led her up the steps. On the top one, the girl halted.
“He found me,” she told Mrs. Kingdon, “in the custody of—Bender, for stealing, and he took me away to save me from jail, to bring me up here to the ‘best woman in the world,’ he said, and I made light of what he had done all the way up the trail. And he was so kind to me—me, a pickpocket. I think I should go back—to Bender.”
She spoke with the impetuosity of a child, and turned to go down the steps.
Kurt looked on helplessly, perplexed by this last mood of his prismatic young prisoner.
Mrs. Kingdon took the girl’s arm again.
“You are going to have a bed and bathbefore you leave, anyway. Come with me. Kurt, you look as if you had best go to cover, too.”
Pen’s outbreak had evidently spent her last drop of reserve force. She submitted meekly to guidance through a long room with low-set windows. She noted a tiled floor with soft rugs, a fireplace and a certain pervading home-sense before they turned into a little hallway. Again she faintly protested.
“I am worse than a thief,” she said. “I am a liar. I haven’t told him—all.”
“Never mind that now,” said Mrs. Kingdon soothingly. “You’ve been ill recently, haven’t you?”
“Yes; I was just about at the end of—”
“You’re at the end of the trail now—the trail to Top Hill. You shall have a bath, a long sleep and something to eat before you try to tell me anything more.”
Pen went on into a sunward room generously supplied with casement windows. A few rugs, a small but billowy bed, a chair anda table comprised the furnishings, but an open door disclosed a bathroom and beyond that a dressing room most adequately equipped.
“This is clover,” she thought presently, when she slipped into a warm bath.
“And this is some more clover,” she murmured later, as, robed in a little nainsook gown, she stretched out luxuriously between lavender scented sheets. “I don’t care what may come later. I know that I am going to have a real sleep.”
It was five o’clock in the afternoon when she awoke. On the chair by her bed was a change of clothing, a pair of white tennis shoes, a dark blue skirt, a white middy and a red tie.
“Oh!” she thought. “The kind of clothes I love.”
She hastened to dress partially, then slipped on a little negligee and began to do her hair.
“I wish it would sometimes go twice in the same place,” she thought ruefully. “I never can fix it as I like. It’s the only thing thatever got the better of me except Kind Kurt. Well!” with an impatient shake of her rebellious locks, “go crop-cut, if you insist. I can’t help it.”
Mrs. Kingdon smiled when the little girlish figure opened the door in response to her knock.
“I felt sure that that outfit, which was left here by my fifteen-year-old niece when she last visited us, would fit you, though Kurt insists that you are twenty. You had a nice sleep, didn’t you?”
“I think I never really slept before. Such a bed, and such heavenly quiet! So different from street-car racket.”
“My husband and the boys have been away all day, or there wouldn’t have been such quiet. Dinner is ready. Kurt didn’t tell me your name.”
“Penelope Lamont. My first name is always shortened to Pen or Penny.”
Down stairs in the long, low-ceiling library she was introduced to Mr. Kingdon,a man of winning personality, a philosopher and a humorist. Ranged beside him were three appalling critics: two boys of nine and seven years respectively, and a little girl of five. They stared at her solemnly and surveyingly while she was presented to their father.
“Can you skin a weasel?” asked Francis, the oldest lad, when Pen turned to him.
“Mother said you were a young lady,” said Billy. “You’re just a little girl like Doris was.”
“And you’ve got on her clothes,” declared Betty sagely.
“Now you surely should feel at home,” declared Mrs. Kingdon.
“Margaret,” commented her husband whimsically, “our children seem to be quite insistent on recognition and rather inclined to be personal in their remarks, don’t you think?”
“We so seldom have visitors up here, you know,” defended the mother, smiling at Penthe while. “We will go into the dining room now.”
Throughout the meal Pen was subtly conscious of an undercurrent of a most willing welcome to the hospitality of the ranch. Her surmise that the vacant place at the table was reserved for the foreman was verified by Betty who asked with a pout:
“Why don’t we wait for Uncle Kurt?”
“He dined an hour ago and rode away,” explained Mrs. Kingdon. “He will be back before your bedtime.”
Every lull in the conversation was eagerly and instantly utilized by one or more of the children, who found Pen most satisfactorily responsive to their advances.
“You’ve had your innings, Francis,” the father finally declared. “That will be the last from you.”
“There’s one thing more I want to know,” he pleaded. “Miss Lamont, do colored people ever have—what was it you said you were afraid Miss Lamont had, mother?”
“Oh, Francis!” exclaimed his mother. “I said,” looking at Pen, “that I feared you were anemic, and then I had to describe the word minutely.”
“Are they ever that, Miss Lamont?” insisted the boy.
“I never thought of it before,” answered Pen after a moment’s reflection, “but I don’t see why they couldn’t be so, same as white people.”
“Then how could they tell they had it. They wouldn’t look white, would they?”
“Suppose,” interceded Kingdon, “we try to find a less colorful topic. I move we adjourn to the library for coffee.”
“We stay up an hour after dinner,” said Billy, when they were gathered about the welcome open fire, “but when we have company, it’s an hour and a half.”
“I should think that rule would be reversed,” replied Kingdon humorously.
“Then, aren’t you glad I’m here?” Pen asked Billy.
“Sure!” came in hearty assurance. “You can stay up a long time, can’t you, because you slept all day?”
“Play with us,” besought Betty.
“Yes; play rough,” demanded Billy.
Mrs. Kingdon interposed. “She’s too tired to do that,” she admonished the children.
Betty came forward with a box of paper and a pair of scissors.
“You can cut me some paper dolls. That won’t tire you.”
“I don’t want dolls!” scoffed Francis.
Pen was already using the articles Betty had furnished.
“Not if we call them circus ladies and I cut horses for them to ride on?” she asked him.
“Can you do that?” he inquired unbelievingly.
“Certainly. Dashing horses that will stand up,” she boasted, and in another moment a perfectly correct horse was laid before the delighted boys.
A few more rapid snips and a short-skirted lady was handed to Betty.
“Now, make a clown, a lion, a tiger, an elephant,” came in quick, short orders which were readily filled.
“My dear young lady,” exclaimed Kingdon. “You are really talented. It is so seldom an artist can do anything but draw.”
“I can’t draw. I am just a cutter,” she corrected. “I can’t do anything with a pencil.”
They were all so absorbed in the paper products that Kurt’s entrance passed unnoted.
“Betty,” he said imploringly, after waiting a moment without recognition, “you can’t guess what’s in my pocket?”
Pen looked up unbelievingly. The caressing, winning note had utterly disguised his voice. As he handed the delighted Betty a satisfactorily shaped parcel, his glance rested upon his prisoner, bringing a quick gleam of surprise to his eyes.
“I am taking out my first papers, you see,”she announced, pointing to the miniature menagerie.
“Where did you learn to do that?” he asked.
“A man showed me,” she said noncommittally.
“What else can you cut?” demanded Francis.
“I can cut an airship.”
“Cut me one.”
“To-morrow,” said Mrs. Kingdon. “The time limit is up.”
“Did you ever go up in an airship?” asked Billy eagerly.
“No; but I know a man who flies,” she boasted.
“Come upstairs and tell us about him,” demanded Billy.
As his mother cordially seconded the invitation, Pen accompanied them to the nursery. When the last “good nights” had been said to the children, Mrs. Kingdon led the way to her room.
“The moon shouldn’t seem so far away,” declared Pen, looking out of the broad window. “We are up so high.”
“I haven’t yet ceased to wonder at these hills,” rejoined Mrs. Kingdon. “We bought this ranch merely for a vacation place, but three-fourths of our time is spent up here, as we have become so attached to it. Mr. Kingdon is an artist, so he never tires of watching the hills and the sky. Sometimes we feel selfish with so much happiness—when there isn’t enough to go around.”
“I know you take but a small percentage of what you give. Shall I tell my story now?”
“I think I know it—or some of it, at least,” replied Mrs. Kingdon, looking at her intently.
Pen looked up with a startled gesture.
“You do! How—”
“When I was in your room just before dinner, it came to me where I had seen you before. It was about a year ago—in SanFrancisco—in a police station. I made inquiries; was interested in you and tried to see you, but we were suddenly called home. I should like to hear more about your life and what brought you to these hills.”
“I wish no one else need know it,” she said entreatingly, when she had told her story in detail.
“Kurt is surely entitled to know itall,” replied Mrs. Kingdon.
“I suppose he is; though I wish he didn’t know as much as he already does. It isn’t necessary to tell him to-night, is it? I am still tired in spite of my long rest.”
“To-morrow will do. If you like, I will tell him, and I wish you and he would leave the entire matter—about Jo and all—in my hands.”
“Most gladly,” assented Pen. “But where is Jo?”
“He is on a neighboring ranch—temporarily, only.”
“There is something else I should like toknow. Why is Kurt so different from most men? Doesn’t he ever look pleasant, or was his gloom all on my account?”
“His life hasn’t been exactly conducive to jollity. He was born in New England and brought up on pie and Presbyterianism by a spinstered aunt who didn’t understand boys. He ran away and came to the West. He has been cattle-herder, cowboy and everything else typical of the hill country. We came here, tenderfooted, and were most fortunate in finding a foreman like Kurt Walters. He has a wonderful way of handling men. He is of good habits, forceful, keen; very gentle to old people and most adorable with children. We make him one of our household. There is the fortunate flaw that keeps him from being super-excellent; he is not merciful to wrongdoers and, as you say, he is too serious—almost moody. That is accounted for by the long night vigils of the cattlemen. They get a habit of inhibition that they never lose. I think the men find him very good companyat times. There is one splendid thing about him. In spite of his rough life and the many years in which he has had opportunity to meet only the—misguided kind of women, he has never lost faith in his ideals of womanhood.”
“I certainly rubbed him the wrong way,” said Pen comprehendingly. “He looked upon me as if there were no place on his map for my kind, and yet he struggled hard to be good to me when I was suffering from cold and hunger. I never met his sort of a man before. The men I have been thrown with think goodness stupid. No matter what crime a girl commits, providing she is attractive in any way, they applaud and call her a ‘little devil.’”
“He talked of you a great deal to-day, and about your chances for reformation.”
Pen smiled enigmatically.
“He said he would have felt more sympathy for me if I had not been educated and knew the enormity of my sins. If he knew moreof the world, he would know that the intelligent criminal has the least chance to reform. When he took me so unexpectedly from Bender, I wanted to see what he was going to do with me. When I found he was bringing me out here, I could have easily given him the slip and escaped, but I was curious to see the ‘best woman in the world.’ I never had faith in a man’s estimate of a woman, but as soon as I saw you, I knew he was right. May I stay? Will you really let me?”
“I quite insist upon your staying. We will go downstairs for a little while now.”
Below, Mrs. Kingdon lingered to give some directions to a servant and Pen went on to the library.
Kurt was standing there alone. She stood small and straight before her warden, looking squarely into his eyes.
“You needn’t,” she said, “put any locks on valuables here—not on my account. The crookedest crook in the world wouldn’t steal fromher.”
“I am glad you recognize a true woman,” he said earnestly.
“Thank you for bringing me here. I feel it’s the turning point in my life.”
“Then,” he said earnestly, “I feel I have done something worth while. You shall not leave here until—you see I am speaking plainly—you have overcome all desire to steal.”
“Not a severe penalty, O Sheriff Man!” she thought as she replied meekly: “To-night I feel as if I could never do anything wrong; but you know the strongest of us have our lapses.”
“I know that too well,” he said gravely, “but—you’ll try?”
“I’ll try. Good-night, Mr. Walters.”
In the doorway she paused and looked back. He was gazing meditatively into the flames of the open fire. She shook a little defiant fist at him and made a childish grimace, both of which actions were witnessed by Kingdon as he entered the room.
“Do you know,” he confided later to his wife, with a chuckle of reminiscence, “as fine a fellow as Kurt is, I sometimes feel like shaking a fist at him myself.”
CHAPTER IV
As on the day previous, Pen awoke at an early hour. She lay quiet for a moment, sensing to the full the deliciousness of being cosily submerged in soft, warm coverings that protected her from the crisp, keen hill-winds that were sweeping into her room.
“The air smells as if it came right off the snow,” she thought, as she drew on some fur-bound slippers and wrapped herself in a Navajo blanket that was on the footrail of her bed. Then she crossed the room, climbed up on the big seat under the casement window and looked out.
It was not the thrilling beauty of the covey of pink-lined dawn-clouds that made her eyes grow round, big and bright; that brought a faint flush to her cheeks; a quick intake of breath. It was something much more mundane that held her attention—the superbspectacle of Kurt Walters, mounted. The lean, brown horseman sat on his saddle as easily as though it were a cushion in a rocking chair. He was talking to three or four cattlemen and apparently paying no attention to his cavorting steed except that occasionally and casually his firm hands brought the plunging animal to earth.
“He’s to the saddle born,” thought the girl admiringly. “He ought to stay on a horse. If I’d seen him yesterday on horseback, he wouldn’t have had totakeme. I’d have flown to him.”
He gave a last command to one of the men, as he turned to ride away.
“All right, boss,” was the reply, as the men dispersed to their various stations of duty.
Suddenly and psychologically the eyes of the rider were lifted to the casement window. Pen waved her hand airily toward him, the movement loosening the gayly striped blanket which fell from her shoulders. The Indian-brownof his face reddened darkly; a gleam came into his steel-gray eyes. He made a military motion toward his hat brim with his whip and then rode swiftly away, without the backward and upward look which she was expecting.
“The boss is a bashful boss,” she thought, with a lazy little pout, as she shook off the blanket, flung her slippers free and went back to bed.
“He’s good to look at, but oh, you comfortable cot!”
When next she awoke, it was near the breakfast hour.
“I’m glad I’m not the last one down,” she said, as she came into the dining-room and noticed Kurt’s vacant chair.
“Oh, but you are!” Betty hastened to say. “Uncle Kurt’s gone away for a whole week, hasn’t he, father?”
“When did he go, Louis?” asked Mrs. Kingdon in surprise.
“A message came for him late last night,”explained her husband. “The sheriff has unexpectedly returned, and Kurt has to be in town for a week to settle up all the red tape routine for his release; and besides, the trial of So Long Sam has been called, and he’ll have to attend.”
Pen had a sense as of something lifted.
“A reprieve for a week, and I can have a beautiful time with nobody nigh to hinder,” she thought. “I had a narrow escape from a real sheriff. Luck is with me, and no mistake!”
“You will feel lost without Kurt at the helm, won’t you, Louis?” asked Mrs. Kingdon. “And Jo away, too.”
“Westcott returned Jo this morning. Simpson has delayed his trip to Canada for a few days.”
“That is good news. Of course Jo hasn’t Kurt’s efficiency, but he gets on well with the men.”
“They say,” remarked Francis sagely, “that Jo is always ‘right there.’”
“So is Uncle Kurt!” exclaimed Betty indignantly.
“You don’t get me, Betty,” said her brother loftily, “but it’s no use explaining to a girl.”
Pen had been a most attentive and eager listener to this conversation.
“I am sorry I didn’t know Kurt was going to town,” said Mrs. Kingdon to Pen, “for we could have sent him for some things for you.”
“What kind of things?” asked Betty curiously.
“I came without my luggage,” explained Pen glibly, “but I can trim out clothes as easily as I can animals, and if you have any stray pieces of cloth I can very quickly duplicate what I am now wearing.”
“We have quantities of material,” said Mrs. Kingdon. “I seem to have a mania for buying it, and there my interest in new garments ceases. Agatha is a fine seamstress, so we’ll have you outfitted in no time.”
“Wouldn’t you like to motor over the place,Miss Pen?” invited Kingdon as they rose from the table. Smiling understandingly at her look of alarm, he added: “I don’t mean in the car Kurt brought you up in yesterday.”
“Uncle Kurt made it all himself—out of parts he bought,” boasted Francis.
“Dear me!” said Pen ruefully. “I wish he hadn’t bought so many parts, or else left some of them out.”
“It’s a fine car!” declared Francis in tone of rebuke.
“I like it better than ours,” said Billy. “We helped make it.”
“I throw up my hands,” said Kingdon. “Only the loyalty of a child would have the courage to defend such a car.”
In a long, luxurious limousine the entire family made the rounds of the ranch to show Pen the squadrons of cattle browsing by the creek, thoroughbred horses inclosed in a pasture of many miles, the smaller-spaced farmyard, the buildings, bunk-houses and “Kurt’sKabin,” as a facetious cowboy had labeled the office where the foreman made out the pay rolls and transacted the business affairs of the ranch.
“I think you have seen it all, now,” said Kingdon, as he turned the car into the driveway that led homeward.
“Oh, no!” cried Billy. “She hasn’t seen Jo yet. There he is at the mess house.”
“Of course, you must see Jo, Miss Pen,” said Kingdon. “I’ll drop you and the kiddies here and you can call on him. I have an idea he will be more Jo-like if my wife and I are not present.”
The car stopped near a long low building, and Pen with the children got out of the car.
“Jo-o-o!” chorused the trio.
From the house came Jo, whom the men had nicknamed the “human spider,” for his arms and legs were the thinnest of his species. He was saved from being grotesque, however, by a certain care-free grace, a litheness of movement. He had greenish-blue eyes thatwere set far apart and crinkled when they laughed—as ever and oft they did. His features were irregular, his hair unruly, but there was a lovable appeal in the roguish eyes and the charm of humor in a mouth that lifted upward at the corners.
“Halloa, kindergarten!” he called in a jovial tenor. “Who’s your little old sister?”
“She isn’t our sister,” denied Francis with dignified mien. “She’s a young lady.”
“Honest?” he asked in amused tone, looking down at the girl whose eyes were hidden by long-lashed, down-turned lids. “How young now?”
Then his dancing eyes grew suddenly quiet and amazed, as her lashes lifted. He read a warning in her glance.
“Jo,” she said gravely and meaningly, “I amPenelope Lamont, and I am a young lady—out of my teens.”
“’Scuse,” he answered seriously, “but you don’t dress it.”
“She’s got on Doris’s clothes,” explainedBetty, “’cause she didn’t bring any of her own, and she’s our Aunty Penny.”
“No,” he said solemnly. “No, she ain’t! You’ve got it wrong side to. Her name is Penny Ante.”
“It isn’t either!” cried Betty angrily, with a stamp of her little foot.
“Uncle Kurt brought her here. She’s his company, so you’d better look out, Jo Gary!” warned Billy.
Jo made a mock gesture of alarm and shielded his face with his arm as if from an imaginary blow.
“Now, why didn’t you say so in the first place! My, ain’t it the luck for me that he won’t be sheriff when he comes back! He might have had me put in the lock-up.”
“I am not Mr. Walters’ company—not now,” explained Pen. “I came up here with him, to be sure, but Mrs. Kingdon has asked me to be her company until I am well. I have been ill.”
“Double ’scuse. And this is the best placein the world to get well. Some little old ranch, and Kurt Walters is some foreman.”
“Aren’t you foreman now?”
“When Kurt is here, I’m nothing but a cow-hand; when he is away, I’m only acting foreman. I’ll never be anything but just acting-something, I guess.”
“Kurt Walters was only acting sheriff.”
“That’s so. We seem to be mostly actingers or actorines,” he allowed. “Say!” turning ferociously to Francis, “what business has a boy looking like an owl? Loosen up, and have some pep!”
The boy’s fair face flushed.
“It’s none of your business how I look, Jo Gary!”
“Wow! Now you’re talking. We can’t fight before a lady, though.”
“Cook says you look like a wishbone, Jo,” taunted Billy, coming to his brother’s defense.
“She did, did she? Well, the cook can hang me over her door, and then—I’ll kiss her.”
“I’ll tell her, and she won’t dance with you to-night.”
“If you do,” threatened Jo, “I won’t tell you where there are four little, new kittens what haven’t got their peepers opened yet.”
“Oh, where, Jo? We’ll not tell her. Please, Jo!” pleaded Betty.
“I choose to name them,” said Francis. “Tell, Jo.”
“I’ll not tell, unless you get your little new playmate here to promise me a dance to-night.”
“Are you really going to have a dance to-night?” asked the girl eagerly.
“Sure thing we are. Right here in this mess hall, and—” looking at her fixedly, he added slowly, “you can dance, too,—with me.”
“Oh!” she cried, her eyes shining. “It will seem so beautiful—to dance again. What do they dance up here—fox trot?”
“We dance any old thing the music tells us to.”
“Same as they do in—Chicago?” she asked demurely.
“Now tell us where the kittens are,” demanded Betty.
“Follow me, little Black and Tan.”
In her excitement Betty forgot to resent Jo’s pet appellation for her.
He led the way to a corner of the tool-house.
Reposing in a nest made of pieces of carpet lined with soft flannel, were four puffballs of maltese which were quickly gathered and garnered by Pen and the children, while the mother-cat looked on with proud but apprehensive eyes.
“Who fixed them such a nice bed?” asked Francis.
“Your Uncle Kurt. But they tell me he rode away at first crack of daybreak, so he didn’t see them.”
“And they’ll have their eyes open before he gets back, maybe!” lamented Francis.
“Perhaps,” put in Jo, “he’ll get his eyesopened wide while he’s gone. Then he and the kits can meet on equal terms.”
“He’ll miss the dance, too,” said Betty sorrowfully.
“Whom do you men dance with?” asked Pen.
“Well, there’s Betty here stays up for three dances anyway, and there’s Mrs. Kingdon, and Ag, and the cook, and the other girl—and everything else failing, we make Gene Dossey play gal.”
“What music do you have?”
“We’ve got two of the finest fiddlers that ever drew a bow. Sleepy Sandy and Jakey Fourr. Say, Billy Kingdon, if you squeeze that kitten so hard, its eyes’ll bust open before the nine-day limit. Put them all down now, or their ma’ll have a kitnip fit.”
“I choose to name them,” said Francis. “Uncle Sam is this biggest one; the one with white on is General Joffre, and the little one is King George and—”
“Hold on there!” cried Jo. “Uncle Samand General J. goes all right, all right; but there ain’t room for another gent’s name. You’ll have to change King George to Georgette.”
“I won’t have her named Georgette!” said Betty. “Her name is Fairy Queen, and that other one is—”
“It’s my turn!” said Billy. “Mine’s going to be named Mewtral.”
“You mean Neutral,” corrected Francis scathingly.
“No; he’s said it,” declared Jo. “She’s mewtralled all the morning. She don’t seem to like her boarding house. Now, all you kidlets run to the kitchen and ask cook for a cup of milk and a clean rag. I’ll force-feed Mewtral, ’cause she’s a little suffragette. Don’t hurry back too fast.”
The children went with alacrity and returned in the same way; but Pen and Jo improved the opportunity for conversation without the three interested listeners.
“Here, Jo,” said Billy, handing over themilk when they had returned. “Let’s see you feed Mewtral. She must be hungry.”
“If she were me,” said Jo, whose eyes were shining, “she’d be too happy to eat.”
He fed the kitten and then tried in vain to obtain further converse with Pen alone, but the children out-maneuvered all his efforts and finally Pen took them back to the house.
“When?” half whispered Jo, as they were leaving.
“When Mrs. Kingdon says,” she murmured in reply.
She turned back for another glance. He was standing, cap in hand, with the air of a conqueror.
“What’s the verdict on Jo?” asked Kingdon.
“Jo’s inimitable,” she replied lightly.
“Wait until you dance with him,” he said. “Jo dances his way into every girl’s heart.”
“I can believe that.”
“He’s one of those sunny-hearted fellows that people take to be shallow, but under thesurface brightness there’s a tolerably deep current. And he never nurses a grudge. If anyone should stick a knife in Jo, he’d only make a question mark of his eyebrow and give a wondering smile.”
“What I can’t understand,” said Pen, “is why the children don’t like him.”
“He plagues us all the time,” complained Betty.
“It’s very odd, though,” commented Kingdon, meditatively, and with a twinkle in his eye, “how you do like to be plagued. You are always tagging at his heels. I think you must be coquetting with Jo.”
“He’s so different with them from Kurt,” said Mrs. Kingdon. “Kurt is so patient and so sweet with children. He understands them.”
“Kurt,” said Pen, “seems to be like some things that are too good for everyday use. He should be laid away on a shelf for Sundays.” Then, meeting Mrs. Kingdon’s wondering eyes, she added with a little flush:“That isn’t true—and it’s unkind! I don’t really mean it.”
“We are all ready for our sewing bee,” observed Mrs. Kingdon, smiling. “What shall we begin on?”
“I’m wondering,” said Pen meditatively, “if I hadn’t better rig up something evening-like for the dance to-night. If you could let me borrow a white muslin curtain, I could easily rig it up into an impromptu dance frock.”
“Jo said he knew a man who turned an automobile into a lamp post,” said Betty.
“Oh, Betty!” laughed Pen, “maybe there is hope for a sinner to be turned into a saint.”
“We won’t have to resort to curtains,” said Mrs. Kingdon. “I have a white satin skirt that is too short for me, and you can fashion a waist from a piece of white muslin.”
“And Doris left her white slippers that were too short for her,” reminded Betty.
“To think,” meditated Pen presently asshe deftly cut out a waist, “that the thief should be making evening clothes, when it was only but yesterday she was booked for bars instead of balls.”