Jim Waring of Sonora-Town Part 46

Lorry flushed, and turned to tie a saddle-string that was already quite secure.

Dorothy nodded to herself and spoke to the horses. They strained on up a steeper pitch, pausing occasionally to rest.

Lorry seemed to have regained his old manner. Her mention of the chaps had wakened him to everyday affairs. After all, she was only a girl; not yet eighteen, her father had said. "Just a kid," Lorry had thought; "but mighty pretty in those city clothes." He imagined that some women he had seen would look like heck in such a riding-coat and breeches. But Dorothy looked like a kind of stylish boy-girl, slim and yet not quite as slender as she had appeared in her ordinary clothes. Lorry could not help a.s.sociating her appearance with a thoroughbred he had once seen; a dark-bay colt, satin smooth and as graceful as a flame. He had all but worshiped that horse. Even as he knew horses, through that colt he had seen perfection; his ideal of something beautiful beyond words.

From his pondering, Lorry arrived at a conclusion having nothing to do with ideals. He would buy a new suit of clothes the first time he went to Phoenix. It would be a trim suit of corduroy and a dark-green flannel shirt, like the suit and shirt worn by Lundy, the forestry expert.

At the base of a great gray shoulder of granite, the Big Spring spread in its natural rocky bowl which grew shallower toward the edges. Below the spring in the black mud softened by the overflow were the tracks of wild turkey and the occasional print of a lynx pad. The bush had been cleared from around the spring, and the ashes of an old camp-fire marked the spot where Lorry had often "bushed over-night" on his way to the cabin.

Lorry dismounted and tied the pack-horses. He explained that they were still a little too close to home to be trusted untied.

Dorothy decided that she was hungry, although they had been but two hours on the trail. Could they have a real camp-fire and make coffee?

"Yes, ma'am; right quick."

"Lorry, don't say 'yes, ma'am.' I--it's nice of you, but just say 'Dorothy.'"

"Yes, ma'am."

Dorothy's brown eyes twinkled.

Lorry gazed at her, wondering why she smiled.

"Yes, ma'am," she said stiffly, as though to a superior whom she feared.

Lorry grinned. She was always doing something sprightly, either making him laugh or laughing at him, talking to the horses, planning some little surprise for their occasional dinners in the Bronson cabin, quoting some fragment of poetry from an outland song,--she called these songs "outlandish," and had explained her delight in teasing her father with "outlandish" adjectives; whistling in answer to the birds, and amusing herself and her "men-folks" in a thousand ways as spontaneous as they were delightful.

With an armful of firewood, Lorry returned to the spring. The ponies nodded in the heat of noon. Dorothy, spreading their modest luncheon on a bright new Navajo blanket, seemed daintier than ever against the background of the forest. They made coffee and ate the sandwiches she had prepared. After luncheon Lorry smoked, leaning back against the granite rock, his hat off, and his legs crossed in lazy content.

"If it could only be like this forever," sighed Dorothy.

Lorry promptly shook his head. "We'd get hungry after a spell."

"Men are always hungry. And you've just eaten."

"But I could listen to a poem," he said, and he winked at a tree-trunk.

"It's really too warm even to speak of 'The Little Fires,' isn't it? Oh, I know! Do you remember the camp we made?"

"Where?"

"Oh, silly!"

"Well, I ain't had time to remember this one yet--and this is the first for us."

"Lorry, you're awfully practical."

"I got to be."

"And I don't believe you know a poem when you see one."

"I reckon you're right. But I can tell one when I hear it."

"Very well, then. Shut your eyes tight and listen:--

"'Do you remember the camp we made as we nooned on the mesa floor, Where the gra.s.s rolled down like a running sea in the wind-- and the world our own?

You laughed as you sat in the cedar shade and said 't was the ocean sh.o.r.e Of an island lost in a wizardry of dreams, for ourselves alone.

"'Our ponies grazed in the idle noon, unsaddled, at ease, and slow; The ranges dim were a faeryland; blue hills in a haze of gray.

Hands clasped on knee, you hummed a tune, a melody light and low; And do you remember the venture planned in jest--for your heart was gay?'"

Dorothy paused. "You may open your eyes. That's all."

"Well, it's noon," said Lorry, "and there are the ponies, and the hills are over there. Won't you say the rest of it?"

"Oh, the rest of it is about a venture planned that never came true. It couldn't, even in a poem. But I'll tell you about it some day."

"I could listen right now."

Dorothy shook her head. "I am afraid it would spoil our real adventure.

But if I were a boy--wouldn't it be fun! We would ride and camp in the hills at night and find all the little fires along the trail--"

"We'd make our own," said Lorry.

"Of course, Mr. Practical Man."

"Well, I can't help bein' like I am. But sometimes I get lazy and sit and look at the hills and the canons and mesas down below, and wonder what's the good of hustlin'. But somehow I got to quit loafin' after a spell--and go right to hustlin' again. It's a sure good way to get rested up; just to sit down and forget everything but the big world rollin' down to the edge of nothin'. It makes a fella's kickin' and complainin' look kind of small and ornery."

"I never heard you complain, Lorry."

"Huh! You ain't been along with me when I been right up against it and mebby had to sweat my way out of some darned box canon or make a ride through some down timber at night. I've said some lovely things them times."

"Oh, I get cross. But, then, I'm a girl. Men shouldn't get cross."

"I reckon you're right. The sun's comin' through that pine there.

Gettin' too hot?"

"No, I love it. But I must go. I'll just ride down to the cabin and unsaddle Chinook and say 'h.e.l.lo' to father--and that's the end of our adventure."

"Won't those city folks be comin' in soon?"

"Yes. And Alice Weston is lovely. I know you'll like her."

"Alice who, did you say?"

"Weston. Alice and her mother are touring overland from Los Angeles. I know you will admire Alice."

"Mebby. If she's as pretty as you."