CHAPTER V
The two fiddlers were tuning their instruments when the party from the house entered the rosy-lighted mess-hall. Jo started forward with an air of assurance to claim Pen. When he beheld her, he stopped abruptly, lost in admiration of the daintily clad young person whose Castle-cut locks had been lured to a coiffure from which little tendrils escaped in babyish rings.
Jakey Fourr, second violin, glimpsed her at the same time and noticed Jo’s hesitating halt.
“Ladies’ Choice!” he shouted with a grin.
Jo looked at her expectantly but vainly; for she gladdened the pride of Francis by choosing him as her partner. Betty and Billy mutually chose each other. Mrs. Kingdon selected a newcomer. Agatha and the “other girl” asked their particular friends, and the cookspitefully “sat it out.” Pen had to follow the prim little steps learned by Francis at a city dancing school the winter before, and Sleepy Sandy thoughtfully timed his tune thereto and shortened the number. Then Jo started for the belle of the ball, but a youth in combination attire of hunter, cowboy and soldier was ahead of him.
“Would you honor me, ma’am?” he asked.
She would and did, but she never learned the name of the wonderful dance with which she “honored” him. It had been a case of “whither thou goest, I will go.”
Again Sleepy Sandy was considerate and cut this number short also.
Then Betty came running breathlessly up to Pen.
“Jo says if you don’t dance with him this next time like you promised, he’ll drown the kittens. Please, Aunt Pen!”
Jo was promptly on hand this time.
“This is mine,” he asserted, “unless you’re danced out by that gink.”
“My dancing blood isn’t up yet,” she said, slipping into his arms. She didn’t care to know the name of the dance. All she knew was the ecstasy of the moment in the flowing, melting rhythm. Jo had the easy assurance of the dancer born, and she went where he willed, as if she were floating on silver wires. Finally, Sleepy Sandy, watching them in envious admiration, was aware that he had played as long as the law of limit allowed.
“Isn’t this better than Reilly’s?” she asked demurely.
“There will never in the world be to me a night like the one at Reilly’s,” he replied.
“Jo, why don’t you go into vaudeville? Your dancing would bring you twice what your work here must.”
“Mine is a man’s job,” he retorted. “I’d rather dance horseback than on any stage. I have to go over to Farley with a lot of cattle to-morrow. It will take me three days. You will arrange to see me again when I come back?”
“I surely will, Jo,” she promised.
“Don’t let Jo monopolize you,” said Kingdon, coming up to them at the close of the dance. “We try to give the boys plenty of recreation, and they don’t get many girls to dance with. None like you.”
Pen dutifully promised to do penance with the rank and file.
“I’ll go and ask the cook,” said Jo mournfully, “else I won’t get half rations. Then I’ll come back for you.”
Reluctantly he gave way to Gene and approached the cook.
“Say!” he asked with a quirk to his mouth, “want to hook on to the wishbone?”
“Those darned brats fetch and carry everything they hear,” she exclaimed.
“Forget it. A wishbone’s the best bone to pick anyway.”
Thereafter he waited patiently for Pen to do her duty dances and slip one in with him.
Pen went to sleep that night with blissful recollections of her wonderful dances with Joand a vague curiosity as to whether Kurt Walters could dance.
For the greater part of three days she sewed assiduously, surrounded the while by three admiring children who listened entranced to a new kind of Scheherazade tales. Between times she gathered flowers for the many jugs and jars, learned to make salads and to perform little household duties hitherto unknown. Then suddenly there came a swift change of mood. The sense of uneasiness, the need of freedom, the desire that pervades the wistful note of the imprisoned bird was in her blood.
“My life is too full of work-days,” she declared. “Three days of domesticity! I can no more. I will see if Jo hasn’t returned.”
Seeking new fields that night, she slipped surreptitiously down to the mess hall.
“Halloa!” greeted Jo rapturously. “I’ve been watching for you, Li’l Penny Ante. Just got back. What you been doing since the dance?”
“Behaving. And I must get even someway or go stark mad. What have you been doing?”
“Me? Jakey here and I’ve been entertaining ourselves with a game of craps.”
“Play it with me instead. It’s the only game I’ve never learned.”
“Sure, I’ll show you. Sit down here on the floor.”
Later Kingdon, in search of the missing guest, strolled down to the mess hall, guided thither by a rippling laugh chorused with responsive guffaws.
Curious, he looked in. Seated on the floor were Jo and Pen excitedly playing an evenly matched game, while an adoring circle of men applauded, encouraged and scoffed in turn.
There were two patches of crimson in Pen’s cream-white cheeks, a bright sparkle of excitement in her eyes, which changed to the apprehensive look of a child expecting reproof as she looked up and saw Kingdon.
“I’m having such a good time!” she told him deprecatingly.
He smiled.
“You look it. The children and the rest of us are lamenting your absence. We want a good time, too.”
“I’ll come again,” she promised, with a backward look at the men, as she docilely walked on with Kingdon.
Jo hurried after them.
“To-morrow’s field day,” he reminded her. “You’ll be there?”
“I’m living on the thought of it. You’re the manager, aren’t you?”
He grinned.
“Actingmanager—for Kurt Walters.”
“Mayn’t I do a stunt, too?” she asked eagerly.
“Sure thing, you may. We’ll be glad to have a novelty in the way of a lady performer. What’ll it be?”
“I’ll see you in the morning and tell you what I can do.”
Mrs. Kingdon smiled understandingly when she heard of the game of craps.
“Just a few days up here have done wonders for you,” she observed, looking at her young charge approvingly.
“Yes; I feel physically fit—like a real soldier.”
CHAPTER VI
With a little sigh of relief and pleasure, Pen laid aside some garments, on which she had been steadily and surreptitiously working, and sought Jo.
“Come down under cover of one of the hills,” she urged, “and I will show you what my part in the day’s work will be. Special exhibition. Admittance free, but no other spectators allowed.”
Half an hour later Jo was gazing at her as one gazes at some marvelous performer, but his awe and admiration were expressed in a simple but effective phrase:
“Oh, baby, but you can put it over them all!”
That afternoon when the Kingdon household came down to occupy the row of raised seats erected in the “field,” Pen was missing. Her absence was a mystery until the followingtyped programs for the day were handed out:
JO GARY, Champion Rider of Top Hill, will rideTurn TurtleandPinch Hitter.
SLEEPY SANDY will rideBattleship GrayandBaby Doll.
JAKEY FOURR will ridePickled PeteandPiker.
GENE DOSSEY will rideHiawathaandWhizz.
Will rideanything brought into the ring!
GREAT EXHIBITION OF ROUGH RIDING by the most notorious riders of the West. Only the most unmanageable animals will be ridden.
Kingdon’s eye-glasses came off with a sense of shock.
“This will never do, Margaret!” he exclaimed. “Those crazy boys have no sense. They’ll bring out some of those wild horses, and that meek-looking, little daredevil friend of Kurt’s will call any bluff. She mustn’t be allowed to ride.”
His wife restrained him as he started away.
“I feel confident that she can do—anything. She told me she could ride.”
“Well,” he replied resignedly, “I always have left everything regarding girls to your judgment, so I suppose I must now, but I am surprised at you.”
The children were thrown into a state of excitement on deciphering Pen’s part in the coming feats.
A bugle sounded.
Into the ring rode the four slim, young top riders of the ranch force, chaparajos and sombreros being much in evidence. They gave the usual stunts in the typical Western wayon a track tramped as hard as asphalt, the tattoo of hoofs making the hard earth ring in the soundless atmosphere. Their feats, singly and together, were marvelous, but there was lacking to the onlookers the charm of novelty, as they had long been accustomed to these and similar exhibitions of horsemanship.
Everyone’s heart beat a little faster with expectancy, therefore, when there came another blare of the trumpet. Into the ring came “Miss Penny Ante,” slim and straight as a boy scout, clad in puttees, dark blue breeches and an olive-drab blouse.
A sleek, shy colt was suddenly inducted into the scene of action. Then there began a frisky game of maneuvers. The little, would-be rider proved as wary and nimble as the colt on which she finally succeeded in shooting a bridle. Another round of come and go, and one leg went over the slender neck, and then down the glossy back slid the lithe figure. With a wondering, protesting neigh, the colttried all the tactics known to his species, but they were of no avail, and after circling and re-circling the ring, Pen calmly relinquished him and awaited the next offer.
A wild-eyed mustang was the victim. As soon as she was mounted, he rose high on his hind feet but came down like a lamb and ended in spinning like a top around the ring.
A general protest went up when a demoniacal-looking buckskin was produced.
“They are horse-mad!” exclaimed Kingdon. “Margaret, this is going to stop right here.”
“Louis,” she replied earnestly, “this is only horse-play to Pen. No, I am not punning. I didn’t know she was going to make this exhibition, but some way I feel that she can easily live up to the promises in the program.”
With a plunge the buckskin went straight into mid-air and came down hard. Then at full speed amid a whirling of dust, he tried all his tricks, but always the little figure heldher position, easily triumphant, and finally the hitherto unmountable animal again came trembling to earth and obediently followed his rider’s will.
“You’ve won!” cried the cowboys.
“Now, bring me a horse, a real saddle horse—the kind you give a kingdom for!” she demanded. “I’d like toridea bit, if you don’t mind.”
They brought her a beautiful thoroughbred. She rode around the ring a few times, and then, leaping the fence to the inclosure, was away and over the hills, her blood throbbing, her heart pounding as she felt the soft, southwest wind in her face, the siren song of freedom ringing in her ears. The divine sweetness of the mountain air was in her nostrils. She was recalled from her state of rhapsody by the sound of pounding hoofs behind her. She half turned in her saddle, expecting to see Jo. She didn’t need the commanding-toned “Wait!” to rein in her horse.
There was an inscrutable look in the blazingeyes of the approaching horseman, a compelling force in his broad shoulders as he rode up to her.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“Nowhere. Just riding,” she replied.
Her uplifted face was vivid with joy, her eyes sparkling. Suddenly a wave of color suffused her cheeks.
“I wasn’t running away!” she declared, suppressing a chuckle. “Honest, I wasn’t. It’s field day. I’ve been doing stunts and I just ached for a real, regular ride. It’s so grand to be astride a horse and feel the world is yours! When did you come home?”
“I haven’t come home. I am on my way to Fowler’s to subpœna a witness, and I rode this way meaning to stop but a moment. I came over the big hill just as you rode into the ring.”
She stole a look at his impassive face.
“And you saw the sports?”
“Yes; and rode on after you—”
“Because you feared your prisoner mightbe taking French leave? No; this is the end of the rainbow to me. I have no desire to leave—at present.”
They were riding slowly on.
“Where did you learn to ride?”
“I don’t remember; it was so long ago.”
“Thatwas circus riding.”
“It did look like it,” she said deprecatingly.
“If you can ride like that, why did you leave the circus for the life—”
“Of a crook?” she finished. “Suppose I stole a horse and sold it and had to vamoose. Even circus managers don’t employ thieves.”
“Who gave you permission to ride to-day?” he demanded.
She pulled from the pocket of her blouse a program and handed it to him.
“You see I was featured,” she explained modestly.
He read it with a frown expressive of displeasure.
“Did Mrs. Kingdon know you were going to do this?”
“No one but one of the men knew.”
“How did you come to meet the men?”
“The children introduced me to one of them and I met the others at the dance. I never knew what dancing really meant until then. I’ve learned to play a very gamey game, too. Craps.”
With a jerk Kurt brought his horse to a halt and reaching over caught her bridle as she was about to spur her horse onward.
“Did you tell Mrs. Kingdon everything?” he asked sternly.
“Everything I could remember,” she replied demurely. “Far more than I told you.”
“What did she say?”
“She is going to talk to you and ask you to leave the entire matter in her hands.”
He broke the short silence that followed.
“Dancing, craps and bronco-breaking are not what I brought you here for.”
“But I’ve done lots of other things, too. Sewed three days straight, learned how tomake salads, heard the children’s lessons, picked flowers and getting wise to a home atmosphere every minute. You won’t send me away?”
He was scowling at the program again.
“Why are you called Penny Ante?”
“You object to all of my names. But this one was Betty’s fault. She introduced me as ‘Aunt Penny,’ and of course they put it backward.”
“Who do they think you are?”
“Your ‘lady friend’ here for a visit,” she answered with the little giggle that always offended him. Then, appeasingly: “Mrs. Kingdon said it would be better if only you and she knew who I am and why I am here at the ranch.”
“Go back to the house,” he directed. “I’ll be home in a few days.”
Obediently she turned her horse and he rode in the opposite direction.
“Kurt—Mr. Walters!” she called entreatingly.
He turned in his saddle and waited until she rode back to him.
“There is something I want to tell you,” she said, her eyes downcast, a faint note of exultation in her voice. “I haven’t taken a thing—or tried to—or wanted to—since I’ve been here, and I’ve had lots of chances.”
Receiving no reply, she looked up pleadingly, and was startled at the transformation in his eyes, which were usually narrow, cold and of steel-gray shade, but now were dark, shining and full of infinite pity as they looked down into hers.
“I am glad to hear it,” he said gently. “You know that was why I brought you here. Now you must do more for me. You mustn’t mingle with the men, or repeat to-day’s program. I want you to be like her—a house-woman. Good-bye—until I come home.”
He rode swiftly away, and she laughed softly to herself, stopping suddenly.
“It isn’t so funny after all; it’s really pathetic. But—a house-woman! Ye Gods!That is the last thing I want to be—or could be. It’s all well for a novelty, but for steady diet—oh, me! If Hebby could have heard the law laid down to me, he’d be overcome with glee. Poor old Heb! I bet he is still frothing at the mouth because I gave him such a neat slip. I seem, however, to have only succeeded in changing keepers.”
She rode on, her conscience smiting her now and then when she recalled the look in Kurt’s eyes.
“I don’t deserve pity from him or anyone,” she thought a little sadly.
She made no mention at Top Hill of having met the foreman. Notwithstanding his orders, for three days she revelled in the companionship of Jo and the men.
“We must harvest all the hay we can,” she told him, “while Kind Kurt is away.”
On the evening of the third day, she found herself watching the hill road from town.
“I feel like Sister Anne,” she thought. “It’s odd, why I am wanting him to return,for when he does, my fun will be nipped in the bud. It may be the feeling of a dog for its master that I have acquired for my sheriff man. Jo will be going soon to Westcott’s. I think I will play up to Kind Kurt and then tell him what I revealed to Mrs. Kingdon. Wow!”
She turned from the window to hear the message Kingdon had just received from the telegraph office in town. An old-time friend had asked him to join a party of men at a ranch a hundred miles distant. His wife urged him to follow his apparent inclination.
“It’ll do you good, Louis, to see more of your kind again.”
“I wouldn’t consider it if you didn’t have such good company,” he said, with a whimsical smile in Pen’s direction.
The following morning, Jo drove Mrs. Kingdon, Pen and the children to town to see Kingdon off. When his train had pulled out, they went to the postoffice and Francis was sent in for the mail.
“A letter for you, mother,” he said, running up to the car. “It’s Aunt Helen’s writing.”
An anxious look came into Margaret Kingdon’s eyes as she read.
“Doris is ill, and my sister wants me to come to her,” she explained to Pen. “She is quite helpless in a sick room and Doris asks for me. There is a train east in an hour and you can send my luggage on to me. I’ll return as soon as Doris is convalescent.”
“I will do all I can to help with the children,” promised Pen.
“I know you will. And Jo can stop at Mrs. Merlin’s and take her to Top Hill. She always presides in my absence. She is a good housekeeper and is never disagreeable or officious.”
“Jo says Mrs. Merlin shinnies on her own side,” added Billy.
“Jo is right,” replied his mother.
At the station Mrs. Kingdon drew Pen aside.
“You must tell Kurt, you know,” she cautioned.
Pen looked plaintive, but the conductor’s “all aboard” call ended the conversation.
“We’ll say our prayers and our lessons like mother told us,” said Francis as they motored home, “but of course we can’t be too good all the time. I am going to ride a horse, a real horse—not a pony.”
“I am going to sit up late nights,” declared Billy.
“And I shall wear your clothes and play I am a boy,” Betty informed him.
“Well,” thought Pen, “after all these Declarations of Independence, I feel I must get in the forbidden fruit game, too. I know what I’ll do. I’ll not tell Kurt—not right away, at least.”
Half way to the ranch they stopped at Mrs. Merlin’s cottage.
“She certainly looks the part of propriety to perfection,” thought Pen, as she surveyed the tall, angular, spectacled woman, who cameto the car, and whose grim features relaxed slightly after a keen glance at the young girl.
“I’ll have four children this time instead of three,” she said.
“What would she think,” reflected Pen, “if Kind Kurt should tell her what kind of a child the fourth one is!”
Back at Top Hill, Pen packed the luggage to be expressed to Mrs. Kingdon, and Jo made another trip to town, planning to go from there to Westcott’s.
At dinner time Kurt arrived, and Pen chuckled as she easily read his dismay at the situation.
“He’s foreseeing and dreading all sorts of terrible things I may do or am capable of doing. Just because he is looking for trouble, I have no desire to give it. I’ll play a new role and show him what a tame, good little girl I can be; maybe I’ll like being one and it’ll turn out to be a real reform. It would be awfully odd if he found his pedalled ideal in The Thief!”
She was conscious of his searching eyes upon her. She looked demurely down. In a soft, subdued voice she read little stories to the children, and when their bedtime hour came, she went upstairs with them.
Later she joined him on the library veranda where he was smoking his pipe, for it was one of the few nights when it was warm enough for such indulgence.
She went up to him unfalteringly.
“I have put myself on honor while Mrs. Kingdon is away,” she said gravely. “I will try hard to do as you want me to do, but it will be easier for me if you will trust me.”
Her eyes looked out so very straight, with none of the worldly wisdom he had seen in them the day she had been transferred to his guardianship, that he found himself incapable of harboring any further doubt of her sincerity.
“I will,” he said staunchly; “I will trust you as she does.”
They sat together in the moonlight withoutfurther converse and in the reposeful silence a mutual understanding was born.
Presently she went inside and played some old-time airs on the piano with the caressing, lingering touch of those who play by ear.
“Where did you learn to play?” he asked wonderingly.
She looked up, slightly startled. She hadn’t heard him come in and her thoughts had been far away from Top Hill.
“I never did learn,” she said, rising from the piano. “I play by ear. I see it is late. I must go upstairs. Good night, Mr. Walters.”
“Good night, Pen,” he said kindly.
He returned to the porch and pipe and lost himself in a haze of dreams—such dreams as had been wont to come to him in his younger days when he had been a cow-puncher pure and simple. Gathered about a roaring camp fire that lighted up the rough and boisterous faces of his companions, he had seemed as one of them, but later when they had gone to well-earned slumber and ithad been his turn to guard the long lines of cattle in the cool of the cottonwoods, he had used to gaze into the mysteries of a desert moon slowly drifting through a cerulean sky and dream a boy’s dream of the woman who was to come to him.
As he grew older and came more into contact with the world, he was brought to an overwhelming realization that the woman of his dreams did not exist. The knowledge made an ache in his heart, but to-night he was again longing with the primary instinct that would not be killed,—longing for the One.
Pen went to bed and to sleep. The next day she was a perfect model of a young housewife. She helped the children with their little lessons, filled all the vases, trained some vines, and then with some needlework went out on the veranda. At the table she listened and responded interestedly to Mrs. Merlin’s bromidic remarks, was gentle with the children and most flatteringly deferentialto Kurt. Of her former banter and coquetry toward him there was no trace. After the children had gone to bed, she played cribbage with Mrs. Merlin while Kurt read the papers.
When she was undressing that night she examined her shoulders in the mirror very closely.
“There should be little wings sprouting. I was never even make-believe good before. The relapse will be a winner when it comes. If I could only steady down to something like a normal life. But I never shall.”
She was standing pensively by a rosebush the next morning feeling appallingly weary of well-doing when Kurt in his riding clothes suddenly appeared before her.
“Would you like to ride this morning?” he asked. “Work is slack just now.”
With a rush of joy she got into her boyish looking outfit and mounted the horse he had chosen for her, a thoroughbred animal but one far different from those she had triedout on field day. She was very careful not to try to outride the foreman, or to perform any of her marvels of horsemanship. They had a long exhilarating ride over the foothills, and she felt the blood leaping again in her arteries at the turning from the comfortable channels of house life into the lure of the open.
“I was never meant for indoors,” she thought. “I think I can stand it up here a while longer if he’ll give me more of this exercise.”
That night as they sat in the library alone, he lost his habitual reticence and talked—through her guidance—of himself and his life.
“Does it satisfy you always,” she asked. “Wouldn’t you like the power of ruling fates and fortunes in a city way?”
“No;” he replied, almost fiercely. “When a man has circled the herd and risen in his stirrups to throw a lariat and watched through the night by the light of camp fires, nothingelse calls to him quite the same way. I couldn’t endure to live a bottled up life—the life of cities. Men of my kind are branded; they may wander, but they always come back. After you once get on intimate terms with the mountain and the blue overhead, other things don’t satisfy.”
She drew him into further conversation regarding his former life, responding briefly but with an undercurrent of interest that put him on good terms with himself.
In the days that followed, these rides became frequent, and despite the fact that they seldom spoke, they unconsciously grew into a closeness of companionship which saved her from the ennui of unwonted domestic environment. The intense vitality of the young foreman attracted her, and she began to have a friendly sympathy for him, and even to feel a tranquil satisfaction in his reposeful silence. At times she was sorely tempted to show him the same little impish self she had portrayed on their first ride up the trail,and sometimes her conscience would sting her that she had failed to confide in him as Mrs. Kingdon had advised, but his gray eyes looked out so very straight and with such calm kindliness—the gaze of a man who has lived the simple life in the open—and with so little affinity to the eyes of the world-wise, that she found herself incapable of carrying out her intentions.
One night when the men had arranged to have another dance, Pen paid unusual attention to her dress. She came downstairs, a slight little figure in a soft, flower-sprigged, old-fashioned muslin (designed originally for bedroom windows and donated by Mrs. Kingdon), her hair softly brought to the crown of her head, with little curling rings about her brow. A freshness like the first faint fragrance of young spring seemed to hover about her. Kurt surveyed her with a look akin to adoration. Then his eyes dropped.
“Don’t dance with the boys to-night,” he said abruptly.
“I must play theingénuepart for which I am costumed,” she thought.
“Mrs. Kingdon told me,” she said gently, “that the boys had so few opportunities for partners, I must divide my dances equally.”
“There’s a party of tourists—teachers—at Westcott’s. I’ve asked them over. The boys can dance with them.”
“Well,” she assented graciously, “I’ll just dance with Betty and Francis and Billy—”
“And me,” he finished.
“Thank you. I didn’t know that you danced.”
In the dance hall she looked eagerly about, hoping that Jo might have been invited, but she was disappointed.
“I am not dancing,” she thought, when Kurt was guiding her over the floor. “I am just being deliciously carried about. It’s very restful, but not exhilarating. Oh, Jo, where art thou? It was like drinking champagne to dance with you, but I suppose continuous champagne is bad for one.”
Later that night when she was taking off her dancing slippers her thoughts were still of the man with whom she had danced so many times.
“He’s kind and good and strong—a suppressed strength. He looks passion-proof; but if he ever falls in love! And what a triumph for a thief to capture an adamantine heart! But I don’t want that kind—nor any kind.”
Down in the bunkhouse, Kurt was recalling the feel of her little hand that had left a trail like fire upon his arm and had filled him with a sensation of ecstasy. A new divine sweetness seemed born into the air. He looked out of his window up into a star-flecked sky and renewed his old vow of allegiance to The Woman.
CHAPTER VII
The next day Francis carried out his cherished intention of being a “bit bad,” and in violation of orders, surreptitiously mounted a “real horse” instead of his well-behaved little pony, and set out on adventure bound.
The horse, surprised at his burden, cantered casually along at first; then, resenting the intrusion, began to toss his head, snort and curvet about. The lad, a little frightened but game, kept his seat and the horse, seemingly ashamed to trifle longer with so small a foe, resumed his easy canter, though at a swifter pace than Francis was wont to ride. All might have ended well, had not Kurt in his home-made car suddenly sounded a blatant horn as he came around a curve. To his vision was disclosed a plunging horse and a small, fair-haired atom of a boy clinging to his neck. There was a forward plunge andthe horse thundered on like mad along a narrow slant of road with never a slackening of speed.
Kurt cranked up for pursuit, but his crude craft was not built on speed lines, and he saw the distance fast eaten up between him and the frenzied horse. Then, with tiger swiftness, Kingdon’s car, a motor of make, passed him, Gene at the wheel, Pen beside him. The sight gave him no hope. They could doubtless overtake the horse, but they could not stop him and if they could, the boy would be thrown.
Pen’s clear young voice came like a clarion call:
“Stick tight, Francis! Burr-tight! We’ll get you all right.”
Gene steered the car to the cliff side of the road to prevent the peril of a plunge by the horse.
When the long, low racing car was nearly up to the Mazeppa flier, a thrill ran through Kurt as he saw Pen step out on the runningboard. He forgot the boy’s danger as he divined her purpose.
The car closed in on the horse. The girl leaned far out, snatched the boy from the horse and climbed back into the car which now slowed up.
It was done in a second, so swiftly, so aptly that Kurt could only sit and gape with the sort of fore-knowledge that it must come out all right, as one gazes at a thrilling scene in a motion picture. When he came alongside the car, Gene looked up with a challenging grin. Francis, though pale and breathing quickly, wore a triumphant look. Pen’s expression was entirely normal.
Kurt tried to speak, but his voice was dry in his throat.
“I stuck on, didn’t I?” clamored Francis in satisfied tone.
Then Kurt recovered and began to reprimand the lad, but a certain sparkle in Pen’s eyes as she clasped the lad to her restrained him.
He turned upon Gene.
“Did you know she was going to do that?”
“Sure!” was the confident reply. “I knew she could do it.”
He flung Kingdon’s racer into motion and slid on down the white ribbon of road to the ranch, while Kurt’s little machine rattled and creaked and jolted along.
“He’ll be sore at coming in after the black flag,” chuckled Gene. “Kurt ain’t used to being second, but I don’t often get a chance at this car.”
Kurt didn’t come up to the house all that day until long after the dinner hour. He found Pen alone in the invitingly-furnished sitting room, the amber light from a shaded lamp bringing out the gleaming gold in her hair.
She looked up with a shy smile of welcome, and instantly he felt the charm a woman could bring to a room like this—a room full of rest and harmony—a haven to a man wearied from the day’s work.
He sat by the table opposite her—too content to desire his pipe.
“Where are they all?” he asked presently.
“Francis was tired and repentant after the excitement wore off and was quite ready to go to bed early. Billy and Betty followed suit. Mrs. Merlin has a headache.”
“How did you come to be riding with Gene this morning?” he asked abruptly.
“Mrs. Merlin asked us to go to her cottage for some things she needed. She thought Gene wouldn’t be able to find them.”
The natural tone of her reply and her utter lack of surprise or resentment at his question quite appeased him.
“It’s a little cool to-night,” he said suddenly. “Wouldn’t you like to have a fire?”
She thought it would be nice, and interestedly watched him build one in the big fireplace.
He formed a fortress of logs with the usual huge one for a background. When he had a fire to his liking he came and sat beside her.
“That was wonderful—what you did this morning,” he said abruptly.
“No; it was simply instinctive.”
“It was a hair-breadth thing to do, but very brave.”
“It wasn’t bravery,” she denied after a moment’s reflection. “It was—I can’t tell you just what it was.”
“It made me bless the fate that led me to you that day.”
“Then,” she said lightly, but coloring confusedly, “I am glad I was able to do it—to repay you and Mrs. Kingdon in part. But where have you been all day?”
“I have been down in the farthest field.”
“Working?”
“Yes; and thinking. Thinking of you—and what you did.”
“Where did you have dinner?”
“I have had none. I am only just aware that I would like some. I came through the kitchen on my way in, but the cook didn’t seem to be about.”
“They are having some sort of entertainment in the mess hall.”
“I am glad you didn’t go,” he said impetuously.
“I thought you would rather I didn’t go,” she replied docilely. “I will try to find you something to eat. Will you come and help me? Cook says you are a champion coffee maker.”
They went through the kitchen into a smaller room.
“Betty calls this the ‘kitchen yet!’ But can you cook?” said Kurt.
“I am glad I won’t be called upon to prove it. The larder’s well larded, and I will set this little table while you make the coffee.”
By the time the coffee was made, she had set forth an inviting little supper. She sat opposite him and poured the coffee. It seemed to him some way that it was the coziest meal he had eaten since his home days—the early home days before his mother died and he had gone to the prunish aunt.
“We must leave things as we found them,” she told him when they could no longer make excuse for lingering.
“I feel in a very domestic mood,” he said, as he wiped the few dishes.
“Do you know I have a very hearthy feeling myself. I know why a cat purrs. Everything is shipshape now. I’ll say good night, and—”
“Come back to the fire,” he entreated. “I want to smoke.”
Back in the library Pen made herself comfortable on one of the window seats, pulling up the shade to let the moonlight stream in.
He followed and sat beside her, watching in silence the pensive, young profile, the straight little features, the parted lips, as she gazed away over the moonlit hills. He felt a strange yearning tenderness.
“Pen!”
She turned, a sweet, alluring look in her eyes.
“Pen!” he said again.
“Yes—Kurt.”
Some alien, inexplicable force seemed to battle with his nature. His lips quivered and then compressed as if in a mighty resolution.
A moment later she slid from the window seat to the floor.
“It is late; good night!” she said quietly.
He rose, took her hand in his and said earnestly:
“Good night, Pen. I wish—”
Again he stopped abruptly.
“I know what you wish,” she said in a matter of fact way; “you are wishing that I had never been—a thief.”
The color flooded his face; embarrassment, longing and regret struggled visibly for mastery.
“Good night,” she repeated, as she quickly sped from the room, leaving him speechless.
Upstairs in her room she stood by the window.
“Kurt,” she soliloquized, “you’ve been weighed and found wanting. You don’t knowwhat love is. No man does. It is a woman’s kingdom.”
Then a radiant smile drove the reflective shadows from her eyes. There had burst forth a whistle, clear, keen, inspiring. Only one person in her world was so lark-like, so jubilant, so joyous of nature as to improvise such a trilling melody.
With an expectant smile she looked out and saw Jo crossing the moonlit lawn.
“Halloa, Jo!” she called softly.
He looked up, extended his cap at arm’s length with a gay flourish and called:
“Bless your little heart of honey! What are you doing up so late?”
“Is it late?” she asked in arch surprise. “I’m so sorry, for I was going to say I’d come down for a little walk with you.”
“’Deed, it’s never too late for that; but say, little Penny Ante, Kurt is sitting in the library window—”
“I am not coming into view of the library window. Wait a moment! Catch this.”
She picked up her sweater from the window seat and threw it down to him, stepped nimbly over the railing of the little balcony, made a quick spring, caught the branch of a nearby tree and slid down to earth.
“Say, you little squirrel! You’d make some sailor. It’s hungry I’ve been for sight of you. I met Gene in town this afternoon and he told me about the wonderful stunt you pulled off this morning for Francis.”
“That was nothing. But—have you come back, Jo?”
“Not yet. I’m motoring in from town and left my car down in the road. I just thought I’d pass by your window and let out a whistle for you.”
“Jo, I came down to say something serious—”
“You can say anything you like to me, Miss Penny Ante,” he replied encouragingly.
“Come away where no one can overhear our voices.”
They strolled away out of the moonlightto the shelter of some shrubbery where they talked long and earnestly. On the way back to the house, Pen, lifting her eyes to his, was struck by the look in his boyish face.
“Jo,” she said, a slight wistfulness in her tone, “you really love—the way a woman loves.”
“What’s the use,” he said defiantly, “if the one I love won’t have me—she—”
He stopped short and looked at her keenly.
“You know, Jo, you must learn to be patient and await—developments.”
A light leaped to his eyes.
“I’ll wait! But the limit mustn’t be too far. Do you know what Gene confided to me to-night? He thinks that Kurt is in love with you!”
She laughed mirthlessly.
“Kurt! He wouldn’t know how to love. If he did, he wouldn’t let himself. He would hang on to his love like a Jew to a bargain. Who would want a grudging love?”
“Kurt is my pal—he—”
“He won’t be if he finds us lingering here. You reconnoitre and see if he is still in the window. I don’t intend to shinny up this tree. It’s so much easier going down than up.”
“You can go in the kitchen way. It’s cook’s affinity night, and she’s somewhere with Gus.”
“The kitchen is where I go in then. Jo, are you very sure that you are in love—enough to marry a thief? You’re only a boy. Better keep your love until you are older.”
“I am not a boy. I am two and twenty.”
“Quite an old man! I’ll see you very soon again, and maybe I can give you—your answer. Kurt goes to town early in the morning. Meet me in the pergola near the garage. Good night!”
By way of the kitchen and back stairs she reached her room undetected.
“Dear old Jo! Poor Kurt!” she thought sleepily, as she stretched herself luxuriously to rest. “It’s a very small, very funny oldworld, and the thief is certainly getting in deep waters.”
On the trail to Westcott’s, Jo was chuckling to himself.
“The little thief! If she isn’t the slickest little lass I ever saw!”
In the library, oblivious to time and place, Kurt still lingered, his dream-like memories trying to learn the tune that Pan was piping on his reeds.