Her Prairie Knight Part 10

"Be'trice, I did get some gra.s.shoppers; you said I couldn't. And you wouldn't go fishin', 'cause you didn't like to take Uncle d.i.c.k's make-m'lieve flies, so I got some really ones, Be'trice, that'll wiggle dere own self."

"Oh, dear me! It's too hot, Dorman."

"'Tisn't, Be'trice It's dest as cool--and by de brook it's awf-lly cold. Come, Be'trice!" He pulled at the smart little pink ruffles on her skirt.

"I'm too sleepy, hon."

"You can sleep by de brook, Be'trice. I'll let you," he promised generously, "'cept when I need anudder gra.s.shopper; nen I'll wake you up."

"Wait till to-morrow. I don't believe the fish are hungry to-day. Don't tear my skirt to pieces, Dorman!"

Dorman began to whine. He had never found his divinity in so unlovely a mood. "I want to go now! Dey are too hungry, Be'trice! Looey Sam is goin' to fry my fishes for dinner, to s'prise auntie. Come, Be'trice!"

"Why don't you go with the child, Beatrice? You grow more selfish every day." Mrs. Lansell could not endure selfishness--in others. "You know he will not give us any peace until you do."

Dorman instantly proceeded to make good his grandmother's prophecy, and wept so that one could hear him a mile.

"Oh, dear me! Be still, Dorman--your auntie has a headache. Well, get your rod, if you know where it is--which I doubt." Beatrice flounced out of the hammock and got her hat, one of those floppy white things, fluffed with thin, white stuff, till they look like nothing so much as a wisp of cloud, with ribbons to moor it to her head and keep it from sailing off to join its brothers in the sky.

Down by the creek, where the willows nodded to their own reflections in the still places, it was cool and sweet scented, and Beatrice forgot her grievances, and was not sorry she had come.

(It was at about this time that a tall young fellow, two miles down the coulee, put away his field gla.s.s and went off to saddle his horse.)

"Don't run ahead so, Dorman," Beatrice cautioned. To her had been given the doubtful honor of carrying the baking-powder can of gra.s.shoppers.

Even divinities must make themselves useful to man.

"Why, Be'trice?" Dorman swished his rod in unpleasant proximity to his divinity's head.

"Because, honey"--Beatrice dodged--"you might step on a snake, a rattlesnake, that would bite you."

"How would it bite, Be'trice?"

"With its teeth, of course; long, wicked teeth, with poison on them."

"I saw one when I was ridin' on a horse wis Uncle d.i.c.k. It kept windin'

up till it was round, and it growled wis its tail, Be'trice. And Uncle d.i.c.k chased it, and nen it unwinded itself and creeped under a big rock.

It didn't bite once--and I didn't see any teeth to it."

"Carry your rod still, Dorman. Are you trying to knock my hat off my head? Rattlesnakes have teeth, hon, whether you saw them or not. I saw a great, long one that day we thought you were lost. Mr. Cameron killed it with his rope. I'm sure it had teeth."

"Did it growl, Be'trice? Tell me how it went."

"Like this, hon." Beatrice parted her lips ever so little, and a snake buzzed at Dorman's feet. He gave a yell of terror, and backed ingloriously.

"You see, honey, if that had been really a snake, it would have bitten you. Never mind, dear--it was only I."

Dorman was some time believing this astonishing statement. "How did you growl by my feet, Be'trice? Show me again."

Beatrice, who had learned some things at school which were not included in the curriculum, repeated the performance, while Dorman watched her with eyes and mouth at their widest. Like some older members of his s.e.x, he was discovering new witcheries about his divinity every day.

"Well, Be'trice!" He gave a long gasp of ecstasy. "I don't see how can you do it? Can't I do it, Be'trice?"

"I'm afraid not, honey--you'd have to learn. There was a queer French girl at school, who could do the strangest things, Dorman--like fairy tales, almost. And she taught me to throw my voice different places, and mimic sounds, when we should have been at our lessons. Listen, hon.

This is how a little lamb cries, when he is lost.... And this is what a hungry kittie says, when she is away up in a tree, and is afraid to come down."

Dorman danced all around his divinity, and forgot about the fish--until Beatrice found it in her heart to regret her rash revelation of hitherto undreamed-of powers of entertainment.

"Not another sound, Dorman," she declared at length, with the firmness of despair. "No, I will not be a lost lamb another once. No, nor a hungry kittie, either--nor a snake, or anything. If you are not going to fish, I shall go straight back to the house."

Dorman sighed heavily, and permitted his divinity to fasten a small gra.s.shopper to his hook.

"We'll go a bit farther, dear, down under those great trees. And you must not speak a word, remember, or the fish will all run away."

When she had settled him in a likely place, and the rapt patience of the born angler had folded him close, she disposed herself comfortably in the thick gra.s.s, her back against a tree, and took up the shuttle of fancy to weave a wonderful daydream, as beautiful, intangible as the lacy, summer clouds over her head.

A man rode quietly over the gra.s.s and stopped two rods away, that he might fill his hungry eyes with the delicious loveliness of his Heart's Desire.

"Got a bite yet?"

Dorman turned and wrinkled his nose, by way of welcome, and shook his head vaguely, as though he might tell of several unimportant nibbles, if it were worth the effort.

Beatrice sat a bit straighter, and dexterously whisked some pink ruffles down over two distracting ankles, and hoped Keith had not taken notice of them. He had, though; trust a man for that!

Keith dismounted, dropped the reins to the ground, and came and laid himself down in the gra.s.s beside his Heart's Desire, and Beatrice noticed how tall he was, and slim and strong.

"How did you know we were here?" she wanted to know, with lifted eyebrows.

Keith wondered if there was a welcome behind that sweet, indifferent face. He never could be sure of anything in Beatrice's face, because it never was alike twice, it seemed to him--and if it spoke welcome for a second, the next there was only raillery, or something equally unsatisfying.

"I saw you from the trail," he answered promptly, evidently not thinking it wise to mention the fieldgla.s.s. And then: "Is d.i.c.k at home?" Not that he wanted d.i.c.k--but a fellow, even when he is in the last stages of love, feels need of an excuse sometimes.

"No--we women are alone to-day. There isn't a man on the place, except Looey Sam, and he doesn't count."

Dorman squirmed around till he could look at the two, and his eyebrows were tied in a knot. "I wish, Be'trice, you wouldn't talk, 'less you whisper. De fishes won't bite a bit."

"All right, honey--we won't."

Dorman turned back to his fishing with a long breath of relief. His divinity never broke a promise, if she could help it.

If Dorman Hayes had been Cupid himself, he could not have hit upon a more impish arrangement than that. To place a girl like Beatrice beside a fellow like Keith--a fellow who is tall, and browned, and extremely good-looking, and who has hazel eyes with a laugh in them always--a fellow, moreover, who is very much in love and very much in earnest about it--and condemn him to silence, or to whispers!

Keith took advantage of the edict, and moved closer, so that he could whisper in comfort--and be nearer his Heart's Desire. He lay with his head propped upon his hand, and his elbow digging into the sod and getting gra.s.s-stains on his shirt sleeve, for the day was too warm for a coat. Beatrice, looking down at him, observed that his forearm, between his glove and wrist-band, was as white and smooth as her own. It is characteristic of a cowboy to have a face brown as an Indian, and hands girlishly white and soft.

"I haven't had a glimpse of you for a week--not since I met you down by the river. Where have you been?" he whispered.

"Here. Rex went lame, and d.i.c.k wouldn't let me ride any other horse, since that day Goldie bolted--and so the hills have called in vain. I've stayed at home and made quant.i.ties of d.u.c.h.esse lace--I almost finished a love of a center piece--and mama thinks I have reformed. But Rex is better, and tomorrow I'm going somewhere."

"Better help me hunt some horses that have been running down Lost Canyon way. I'm going to look for them to-morrow," Keith suggested, as calmly as was compatible with his eagerness and his method of speech. I doubt if any man can whisper things to a girl he loves, and do it calmly. I know Keith's heart was pounding.