The Forfeit Part 15

Oh, it's pretty bad," he sighed wearily. "But--I've closed the book, Bud, and please G.o.d I'll never open it again."

CHAPTER IX

FOUR YEARS LATER

Nan Tristram smiled to herself as she sat in the comfortable rocker before the open French window which gave on to the wide wooden balcony beyond. The view she had was one of considerable charm, for Aston's Hotel was situated facing one end of Maple Avenue, looking straight down its length, which was at once the princ.i.p.al and most beautiful thoroughfare in the picturesque western city of Calthorpe.

But her smile had nothing to do with anything the prospect yielded her.

Its beauties were undeniable; she had admitted them to herself many times. But she knew them with that intimacy which robs things of their first absorbing charm. The wide-spreading maple trees, which so softened down the cold beauty of the large stone-fronted residences lining the avenue, were always a source of soothing influence in the excited delight of a visit to this busy and flourishing city. Then the vista of lofty hills beyond the far limits of the town, with their purpling tints, their broken facets, their dimly defined woodland belts, they made such a wonderful backing to the civilized foreground.

Nan Tristram loved the place. For her, full of the dreams of youth, Calthorpe was the hub of all that suggested life and gaiety. It was the one city she knew. It was the holiday resort of the girl born and bred to the arduous, and sometimes monotonous life of the plains.

But it was, in reality, a place of even greater significance. Nan saw it only as it appealed to her ardent fancy. But Calthorpe was a flourishing and buoyant city of "live" people, who were fully aware of its favorable possibilities as the centre of the richest agricultural region in the whole of the State of Montana.

It was overflowing with prosperity. The ranching community, and the rich grain growers for miles around, poured their wealth into it, and sought its light-hearted life for the amus.e.m.e.nt of their families and themselves. Its social life was the life of the country, and to take part in it needed the qualification of many acres, or much stock, a bank balance that required no careful scrutiny, and a temperament calculated to absorb readily the joy of living.

It was something of this joy of living which was stirring now, lighting the girl's soft brown eyes with that tender whimsical smile which was never very far from them. She was resting after the early excitements of the day. It was her twenty-second birthday, and, in consequence, with so devoted a father, a day of no small importance. She had been warned by that solicitous parent to "go--an' have a sleep, so you don't peter right out when the fun gets good an' plenty." But Nan had no use for sleep just now. She had no use for anything that might rob her of one moment of the delight and excitement of the Calthorpe Cattle Week, as it was called. Therefore she undutifully abandoned herself to a pleasurable review of events whilst waiting for the next act in the day's play to begin.

And what a review it made in her understanding of the life about her.

It was four years since her father and Jeff Masters had signed their partnership, and she knew that to-day, on the second day of _the_ week, the triumph of the great "Obar" Ranch, which her father and Jeffrey Masters had so laboriously and patiently built up, was to be completed.

Now, even while she sat there gazing from her window at the panorama of life pa.s.sing up and down the broad expanse of Maple Avenue, the Council of the Western Union Cattle Breeders' a.s.sociation was sitting for its annual conference and election of officers. And had she not already been confidentially warned that Jeff was to be the forthcoming year's president?

It was the crowning event in the long dreamed dreams of the two men whom she frankly admitted to herself were nearest and dearest to her.

Why should she not admit it? Her father? Ah, yes, her father was the most perfect, kindly, sympathetic father that ever lived. And Jeff? A warm thrill swept through her heart and set it beating tumultuously.

Jeff was her whole sum and substance of life itself.

Well enough she knew that no other bond than that of friendship existed between them; that no word had ever pa.s.sed between them which might not have pa.s.sed in the daily intercourse between brother and sister. But this did not cause her to shrink from the admission. Jeff was her whole horizon in life. There was no detail of her focus which was not occupied by the image of the man whom she regarded as the genius of their fortunes.

There were moments enough when she realized with something akin to dismay that Jeff and she _were_ friends. But her gentle humor always served her at such moments. And there was always the lukewarm consolation that there was no other woman who had even a similar claim.

Therefore she hugged her secret to herself, and only gazed upon it in such moments of happy dreaming as the present.

And just now they were happy moments. How could it be otherwise in a girl so healthy, and with such a depth of human feeling and with such a capacity for sheer enjoyment of the simple pleasures which came her way? What an evening yet confronted her in this brief week of holiday from the claims of the green-brown plains of summer. She must be ready at seven o'clock for the reception at the City Hall. She had a new gown for that particular event, which had, amongst others, been bought in New York. It had cost one hundred and thirty dollars, an unthinkable price it had seemed, but dismissed as something too paltry to be considered by the open-handed ranchman whom she claimed as father.

She was to a.s.sist Jeff and her father in receiving the guests, who would represent all the heads of their cattle world, and their friends, and their wives, and their daughters. And after that the banquet, which, since the inauguration of the a.s.sociation, had always taken place, here at Aston's Hotel.

There would be speeches. Jeff would speak, and her father--no, she hoped he wouldn't speak. Her smile deepened. He had such a way of saying just what came into his funny, simple old head, and such a curious vocabulary. Then, after the banquet, the--Ball!

The girl emitted a deep ecstatic sigh. The ball! It was the crowning glory, and--she had a beautiful new gown for each event. It was a ravishing thought. Perhaps a mere man may be forgiven his lack of imagination in his appreciation of such perfect, unutterable delight.

But Nan had no cloud to obscure her sun. The labor of dressing afresh, three times in one evening without a maid, except the questionable a.s.sistance of a hotel chambermaid, had no terrors for her--none whatever.

Her day-dreaming was interrupted by an immoderate thump on the door.

She turned her head at once, her pretty dancing eyes alight with expectancy.

"That you, Dad?" she called.

"Sure, Nan." Then came a fumbling at the door handle.

"You can come right in," the girl cried, without moving from her chair.

The door was thrust open, and the sunburnt face with its shock of curling iron gray hair and whiskers appeared round it. The deep-set eyes surveyed the room, and took on a look of deep concern.

"Say, Nan," he cried, "you'll never git fixed in time. I jest give you the limit of time before I got around. You see, I didn't fancy you not gettin' a good slep."

The girl shook her pretty head and smiled as she observed the careful toilet she felt sure her father had spent the whole afternoon upon.

She sprang from her chair and surveyed him critically, with her head judicially poised on one side, and her pretty ripe lips slightly pursed.

"Everything's bully but that bow tie," she declared, after a considering pause. "Just come right here and I'll fix it. Say, Dad, I envy you men. Was there ever a nicer looking suit for men than evening clothes? I'm--kind of proud of my Daddy, with his wide chest and good figure. And that white waistcoat. My, but you don't look as if you'd ever branded a calf in your life. It's only your dear handsome face gives you away, and--and the backs of your hands."

Nan laughed as she retied the tie to her satisfaction, the fashion in which a girl loves to see a bow tied. The man submitted meekly, but with concern for her final remark.

"But I scrubbed 'em both--sore," he declared anxiously.

"I don't mean they're dirty, Daddy," the girl laughed. "Was there ever such a simple, simple soul? It's the wholesome mahogany tan which the wind and the sun have dyed them. Say, there, get a peek at yourself in that gla.s.s." She thrust him toward a wall mirror. "It's not girls only who need a mirror, when a man is good to look at, Daddy, is it?

Honest? It doesn't make you hate yourself, nor feel foolish. I guess there's men folks who'd have you think that way, but if I know anything they'd hate to be without a mirror when they're fixing themselves for a party where there's to be some nice looking women, and where they're to be something better than just a 'stray' blown in."

Bud laughed at the rapid flow of the girl's banter. But he had by no means forgotten his own concern.

"But, say, Nan, you hain't got time for foolin' around. You surely hain't. It's haf after five, an' we're due at the City Hall seven, sharp. Y'see, you ain't like us fellers who don't need no fixin' to speak of. An' you're helpin' us to receive the folks----"

Nan's delighted laugh rippled through the pleasant room.

"Oh, my Daddy," she cried, with wide, accusing eyes, "you're the best laugh in a month." Then she held up one admonishing finger before her dancing eyes. "Now the truth. What was the minute you started to make yourself--pretty?"

She sat herself upon a table before him with the evident purpose of enjoying to the full the delighted feelings of the moment.

Bud eyed her steadily. He knew he was to be cornered. Nor would it be for the first time. The relation between these two was that of a delightful companionship in which the frequent measuring of wit held no inconsiderable place amidst a deep abiding affection.

"Say--a touch of the north wind around, Nan, eh?" he smiled.

"Never mind the north wind, Daddy," Nan laughed. "Just when? That's what I need to know now."

The man's fingers sought his crisply curling hair.

"No, no," cried Nan, in pretended alarm, "Guess you're going to undo an hour's work that way."

Bud dropped his hand in real dismay.

"Guess I plumb forgot. Wal, say, since you got to know, I'd say it must ha' bin right after din--I mean luncheon. You see, I'd----"

"Ah, say three o'clock." Nan leaned forward, her pretty face supported on the knuckles of her clasped hands, her elbows resting upon her knees. "Oh, Daddy--and you aren't due at the party till seven. Four hours. Four valuable hours sitting around in your dandy new suit of evening clothes. Vanity. Pure vanity. We're all the same, men who _don't_ need--fixing, and women who _do_. Only you men won't admit it.

Women do. They surely do. Any woman's ready to admit she'd rather look nicer than any other woman than be all sorts of a girl other ways.

And though they don't ever reckon to admit it, men just feel that way, too. Oh, I guess I know. The boys are just yearning for the girls to think there's nothing but big 'thinks' moving around in their well-greased heads. And they'd hate a girl who got the notion they had time to stand around gawking in a mirror to see their clothes set right, or study the look they're going to pour into the china blue eyes of some tow-headed bundle who knows his bank wad down to the last cent."

She sighed heavily, but her eyes were literally dancing.

"But it's kind of nice that boys act that way," she went on. "It does give a girl a chance to think him all sorts of a G.o.d for--a while.