Her Prairie Knight Part 1

Her Prairie Knight.

by B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower.

CHAPTER 1. Stranded on the Prairie.

"By George, look behind us! I fancy we are going to have a storm." Four heads turned as if governed by one brain; four pairs of eyes, of varied color and character, swept the wind-blown wilderness of tender green, and gazed questioningly at the high-piled thunderheads above. A small boy, with an abundance of yellow curls and white collar, almost precipitated himself into the prim lap of a lady on the rear seat.

"Auntie, will G.o.d have fireworks? Say, auntie, will He? Can I say prayers widout kneelin' down'? Uncle Redmon' crowds so. I want to pray for fireworks, auntie. Can I?"

"Do sit down, Dorman. You'll fall under the wheel, and then auntie would not have any dear little boy. Dorman, do you hear me? Redmond, do take that child down! How I wish Parks were here. I shall have nervous prostration within a fortnight."

Sir Redmond Hayes plucked at the white collar, and the small boy retired between two masculine forms of no mean proportions. His voice, however, rose higher.

"You'll get all the fireworks you want, young man, without all that hullabaloo," remarked the driver, whom Dorman had been told, at the depot twenty miles back, he must call his Uncle Richard.

"I love storms," came cheerfully from the rear seat--but the voice was not the prim voice of "auntie." "Do you have thunder and lightning out here, d.i.c.k?"

"We do," a.s.sented d.i.c.k. "We don't ship it from the East in refrigerator cars, either. It grows wild."

The cheerful voice was heard to giggle.

"Richard," came in tired, reproachful accents from a third voice behind him, "you were reared in the East. I trust you have not formed the pernicious habit of speaking slightingly of your birthplace."

That, d.i.c.k knew, was his mother. She had not changed appreciably since she had nagged him through his teens. Not having seen her since, he was certainly in a position to judge.

"Trix asked about the lightning," he said placatingly, just as he was accustomed to do, during the nagging period. "I was telling her."

"Beatrice has a naturally inquiring mind," said the tired voice, laying reproving stress upon the name.

"Are you afraid of lightning, Sir Redmond?" asked the cheerful girl-voice.

Sir Redmond twisted his neck to smile back at her. "No, so long as it doesn't actually chuck me over."

After that there was silence, so far as human voices went, for a time.

"How much farther is it, d.i.c.k?" came presently from the girl.

"Not more than ten--well, maybe twelve--miles. You'll think it's twenty, though, if the rain strikes 'Dobe Flat before we do. That's just what it's going to do, or I'm badly mistaken. Hawk! Get along, there!"

"We haven't an umbrella with us," complained the tired one. "Beatrice, where did you put my raglan?"

"In the big wagon, mama, along with the trunks and guns and saddles, and Martha and Katherine and James."

"Dear me! I certainly told you, Beatrice--"

"But, mama, you gave it to me the last thing, after the maids were in the wagon, and said you wouldn't wear it. There isn't room here for another thing. I feel like a slice of pressed chicken."

"Auntie, I want some p'essed chicken. I'm hungry, auntie! I want some chicken and a cookie--and I want some ice-cream."

"You won't get any," said the young woman, with the tone of finality.

"You can't eat me, Dorman, and I'm the only thing that looks good enough to eat."

"Beatrice!" This, of course, from her mother, whose life seemed princ.i.p.ally made up of a succession of mental shocks, brought on by her youngest, dearest, and most irrepressible.

"I have d.i.c.k's word for it, mama; he said so, at the depot."

"I want some chicken, auntie."

"There is no chicken, dear," said the prim one. "You must be a patient little man."

"I won't. I'm hungry. Mens aren't patient when dey're hungry." A small, red face rose, like a tiny harvest moon, between the broad, masculine backs on the front seat.

"Dorman, sit down! Redmond!"

A large, gloved hand appeared against the small moon and it set ignominiously and prematurely, in the place where it had risen. Sir Redmond further extinguished it with the lap robe, for the storm, whooping malicious joy, was upon them.

First a blinding glare and a deafening crash. Then rain--sheets of it, that drenched where it struck. The women huddled together under the doubtful protection of the light robe and shivered. After that, wind that threatened to overturn the light spring wagon; then hail that bounced and hopped like tiny, white rubber b.a.l.l.s upon the ground.

The storm pa.s.sed as suddenly as it came, but the effect remained. The road was sodden with the water which had fallen, and as they went down the hill to 'Dobe Flat the horses strained at the collar and plodded like a plow team. The wheels collected ma.s.ses of adobe, which stuck like glue and packed the s.p.a.ces between the spokes. Twice d.i.c.k got out and poked the heavy mess from the wheels with Sir Redmond's stick--which was not good for the stick, but which eased the drag upon the horses wonderfully--until the wheels acc.u.mulated another load.

"Sorry to dirty your cane," d.i.c.k apologized, after the second halt. "You can rinse it off, though, in the creek a few miles ahead."

"Don't mention it!" said Sir Redmond, somewhat dubiously. It was his favorite stick, and he had taken excellent care of it. It was finely polished, and it had his name and regiment engraved upon the silver k.n.o.b--and a date which the Boers will not soon forget, nor the English, for that matter.

"We'll soon be over the worst," d.i.c.k told them, after a time. "When we climb that hill we'll have a hard, gravelly trail straight to the ranch.

I'm sorry it had to storm; I wanted you to enjoy this trip."

"I am enjoying it," Beatrice a.s.sured him. "It's something new, at any rate, and anything is better than the deadly monotony of Newport."

"Beatrice!" cried her mother "I'm ashamed of you!"

"You needn't be, mama. Why won't you just be sorry for yourself, and let it end there? I know you hated to come, poor dear; but you wouldn't think of letting me come alone, though I'm sure I shouldn't have minded.

This is going to be a delicious summer--I feel it in my bones."

"Be-atrice!"

"Why, mama? Aren't young ladies supposed to have bones?"

"Young ladies are not supposed to make use of unrefined expressions.

Your poor sister."

"There, mama. Dear Dolly didn't live upon stilts, I'm sure. Even when she married."

"Be-atrice!"

"Dear me, mama! I hope you are not growing peevish. Peevish elderly people--"