Out Of The Depths Part 20

He took heart a little from her cheery, positive a.s.surance. "Well, if you insist, I shall not go until they show--"

"They'll not recognize you at first. That will give me a chance to speak before they can say anything disagreeable. I'm sure Mr. Blake will understand."

"But--Genevieve?"

"If she married him when he was as rough as you say, and if he agrees to let bygones be bygones, you need have no fear of Mrs. Blake. Only be sure to go into raptures over the baby. Tell her it's the perfect image of its father."

"What if it isn't?" objected Ashton gloomily.

She dimpled. "One must allow for the difference in age; and there's always some resemblance--each must have a mouth and eyes and ears and a nose."

He caught himself on the verge of laughter. Her eyes were fixed upon him, pure and honest and dancing with mirth. A sudden flood of crimson swept up his face from his bristly, tanned chin to his white forehead. He averted his gaze from hers.

"You're _good_!" he choked out. "I don't deserve--But I can't go--when you tell me to stay!"

"Of course you can't," she lightly rejoined. "Look! There's the train coming. Push on the lines!"

CHAPTER XII

THE MEETING

A word started the horses into a lope. The buckboard was whirled along over the last two miles to Stockchute in a wild race against the train. The steam horse won. It had sidetracked the private car attached to the rear of the last pullman and was puffing away westward, when Ashton guided his running team in among the crude shacks of the town. He swung around at a more moderate pace towards the big chute for cattle-loading, and fetched up a few yards out from the rear step of the private car.

An a.s.siduous porter had already swung down with a box step. A big, square-faced, square-framed man of twenty-eight or thirty stepped out into the car vestibule. He sprang to the ground as Miss Knowles stepped from the buckboard. She had lowered her veil, but it failed to mask the extreme brilliancy of her eyes and her quick changes of color. Her face, flushed from the excitement of the race into town, went white when she first saw the man in the vestibule; flushed again when he sprang down; again paled; and, last of all, glowed radiantly as she advanced to meet him.

He hastened to her, baring his big head of its Panama, and staring at her fashionable hat and dress in frank surprise.

"Mr. Blake!" she murmured.

At the sound of her voice he started and fixed his light blue eyes on her veiled face with a keen glance. She turned pale and as quickly blushed, as if embarra.s.sed by his scrutiny.

"Excuse me!" he apologized. "You are Miss Knowles?"

"Yes," she murmured.

"Knowles?" he repeated, half to himself. "Strange! Haven't I met you before?"

"In Denver?" she suggested. "I spend my winters in Denver. But there was one in Europe."

"No, it wouldn't be either. You must excuse me, Miss Knowles. There was something about your voice and face--rather threw me off my balance. If you'll kindly overlook the bungling start-off! I'm greatly pleased to meet you. My wife will be, too. May I ask you to step aboard the car?--No, here she is now."

A graceful, rather small lady, dressed with elegant simplicity, had come out into the car vestibule.

"Jenny, here's Miss Knowles now," said Blake. "She came to meet us herself."

"That was very good of you, Miss Knowles," said the lady, as the two advanced towards her. "We are very glad to meet you. Will you not come up out of the sun?"

The white-uniformed porter promptly stood at attention. Blake as promptly offered his hand. The girl accepted his a.s.sistance and mounted the car steps with an absence of awkwardness instantly noted by Mrs. Blake. That lady held out a somewhat thin white hand as Isobel drew off her gauntlet gloves. But she did not stop with the light firm handclasp. Lifting the girl's veil, she kissed her full on her coral lips.

"We shall be friends," she stated, a smile in her hazel eyes.

"I hope so," murmured the girl, blushing with delight. "The only question is whether you will like me."

Mrs. Blake patted the plump, sunbrowned hand that she had not yet relinquished. She was little if any older than the girl, but her air was that of matronly wisdom. "My dear, can you doubt it? I was prepared to like even the kind of young woman my husband told me to expect."

"Bronco Bess, Queen of the Cattle Camp," suggested the girl, dimpling.

"Wait till you see me rope and hogtie a steer."

Mrs. Blake smiled, and looked across at Ashton, who sat motionless under the shadow of his big sombrero, his face half averted from the car.

"I've a real surprise for you," said the girl. "Mr. Blake, if I may tell it to you also."

Blake swung up the steps, hat in hand. "It can't be half as pleasant as the surprise you've already given us," he said.

"I fear not," she replied, with a quick change to gravity. She looked earnestly into their faces. "Still, I hope--yes, I really believe it will please you when you consider it. But first, I want to tell you that out here it's our notion that a man should be rated according to his present life, and not blamed for his past mistakes."

"Certainly not!" agreed Mrs. Blake, with a swift glance at her husband. "If a man has mounted to a higher level, he should be upheld, not dragged down again."

"That's good old-style Western fair play," added Blake.

"I'm so glad you take it that way!" said Isobel. "A young man utterly ruined in fortune--partly at least through his own fault--came to us and asked to be hired. He has been a hard worker and a gentleman. His name is Lafayette Ashton."

"Ashton?" said Blake, his face as impa.s.sive as a granite mask.

"Yes. He has told me all about the bridge. He wished to go away, because he thought you and Mrs. Blake would not like to meet him. I told him you would be willing to let bygones be bygones, and help him start off with a new tally card."

"Lafayette Ashton working--as a cowboy!" murmured Mrs. Blake.

"He is still a good deal of a tenderfoot. But he is learning fast; and work!--the way he pesters Daddy to find him something to do!"

"He certainly must be a changed man," dryly commented Blake.

"_Cherchez la femme_," said his wife.

"Mrs. Blake!" protested the girl, blushing.

"What's that?" he asked.

"'Find the woman,'" explained Mrs. Blake.

"That's easy," he said, fixing his twinkling eyes on the rosy-faced girl.

"But I'm sure it has not been because of me--at least not altogether,"

she qualified with her uncompromising honesty.