Читать книгу The Enchanted Hill (Western Novel) - Peter B. Kyne - Страница 5
CHAPTER III
ОглавлениеThat was a long and memorable drive to Arguello.
The horse did not take kindly to being led behind an automobile, and it required very slow going at first to win the animal’s confidence; he showed a disposition to be towed rather than led, and once, in his terror and bewilderment, he half turned and did a devil’s tattoo with his heels on the rear of the tonneau.
“It’s an awful thing to have been born cursed with an obliging disposition,” Lee Purdy mourned. “Here you observe the spectacle of another man’s horse kicking holes in my automobile.”
“If he succeeds in kicking any paint off your automobile I’ll send him a sack of oats,” Miss Ormsby answered crisply. “Another dent or two cannot possibly make any difference.”
Purdy nodded. “I do not yearn for new and shiny automobiles as I used to,” he admitted. “This one has a good motor; it gets me where I want to go.”
“Isn’t this your horse then, Mr. Purdy?”
“No, it belongs to the wounded man you saw me put aboard the train.”
“Who was that man?”
“I don’t know. Never met him before.”
“I had an idea he was a friend of yours. I heard you instruct the conductor to tell the station agent at Arguello to send the man to the railroad hospital and that you would guarantee the bill.” Purdy had no answer to that. “Well?” the girl persisted.
“Well, what?”
“I’m bursting with curiosity. Why did you guarantee the hospital bill of a total stranger and then take charge of his horse?”
“I didn’t know what else to do. The man has a chance to recover and I couldn’t very well leave him to die all alone out in the sage, could I? Besides, this horse looks good to me. Good saddle and bridle, too. If that man dies and nobody calls for his horse and outfit I suppose I may, with entire propriety, keep it. Moreover, I’m entitled to security for that hospital bill, am I not?”
“I prefer to think you have done all this because you are magnanimous—or sorry you shot that man.”
“How do you know I shot him?”
“While you were fussing with that horse a little while ago I pulled your rifle half-way out of the scabbard and looked in the breech. There is an empty shell in it.”
He turned toward her and favored her with a frank, appreciative smile, but made no verbal comment on her perspicacity. “How do you know you were looking at my rifle?” he parried.
“Because his is in the tonneau! His belt is there also, and I noticed two vacancies. So I suspect he shot at you twice. I suspect too that you took that pistol away from him, otherwise you would have a holster for it. It must be inconvenient to wear it inside the band of your trousers, like a professional killer.”
“What do you know about professional killers?”
“They’re all over Hollywood,” she replied lightly. “You can’t fool me on Wild West stuff. I have been raised too close to motion pictures. Out in my country we’re fed up on it.”
“I think I approve of you—quite,” said Lee Purdy.
“I think I might be induced to approve of you if you were more communicative. Why did Ira Todd speak ill of you?”
“Well, you see, Miss Ormsby, Ira doesn’t like me.”
“What did you do to cause him to dislike you?”
“I wear these riding breeches and boots and a wrist watch and a necktie and I use a handkerchief. I suppose Ira Todd could put up with these weaknesses of mine, but I strain his good nature by brushing my teeth and bathing frequently between the spring and the fall round-ups. So Ira thinks I’m a dude and tells everybody I am.”
The girl laughed, and her silvery cachinnation tinkled pleasantly on ears long since attuned to the heartier and less refined laughter of the local belles. “I wonder what you think of Ira Todd?” she ventured. But Lee Purdy was silent, and she told herself she liked him for that.
However, like the majority of her sex, Gail Ormsby was curious.
“Why did the owner of this horse shoot at you, Mr. Purdy?”
“I forgot to ask him the exact amount, Miss Ormsby, but I surmise he did it for a sum in the neighborhood of two hundred dollars. The market price for removing objectionable persons, according to the last quotation I had, is two hundred dollars.”
“And the man was not your enemy? He tried to kill you to earn a fee?” Horror and incredulity were expressed in her face and voice.
“I have his word for it, Miss Ormsby; I know of no reason why he should lie about it. I didn’t ask him about his business. His admission was quite voluntary.”
“How perfectly atrocious! Why, I thought the Wild West survived only in Hollywood!”
“There is no Wild West, and I doubt very much if the West was ever much wilder than the East. I can engage a gangster in New York or Chicago to remove an objectionable person for a sum as low as fifty dollars. Out here, however, our professional killers have some professional pride. They believe that the laborer is worthy of his hire and they will not work for scab wages. I honor them for it.”
She glanced at him quickly, but his face was solemn to the point of sadness. “You appear to regard this attempt upon your life as a very trifling affair, Mr. Purdy,” she pursued.
He nodded. “Life is a very trifling affair, Miss Ormsby. Some years back I learned how not to take it seriously. My life is quite heavily insured, and I’m much more valuable dressed than on the hoof.”
“Are you a fatalist?”
“Oh, no, indeed! A fatalist is one who believes that what will happen will happen, whereas I know from experience that what will happen may be indefinitely delayed if one exercises a little horse-sense.”
“You must have an implacable enemy in this country, Mr. Purdy.”
“Your Mr. Ira Todd is the only man here who evinces an active dislike of me. However, Todd didn’t hire that killer.”
“I’m sure he didn’t. Really, Mr. Purdy, he wouldn’t.”
“Of course he wouldn’t!” Purdy’s voice carried a razor edge of sarcasm.
“I’m glad to hear you say so positively that he did not hire that loathsome reptile. Do you know who did?”
“I do not, Miss Ormsby.”
“Why does Ira Todd dislike you, Mr. Purdy? Please tell me the real reason.”
Lee Purdy’s grave face lighted with a grim smile. “Oh,” he answered lightly, “Ira doesn’t dislike me half as much as he does my idea of dress, and the fact that while I am of this country, nevertheless I am an alien. Remember what old What’s-his-name said: ‘We hate people because we do not know them, and we do not know them because we hate them.’ ”
“Do you dislike Ira Todd?”
“Certainly. I dislike him exceedingly. Do you like him, Miss Ormsby?”
“I have never met Ira Todd,” she answered.
“Well, when you do you’ll like him. Todd is a fairly presentable chap. He’s a good cow-man and a good ranch manager of the old school; he has a host of friends in this country, and once he served a term as sheriff, cleaned up the office and ran some twenty undesirable characters off to greener pastures. He is good-looking and courageous.”
“Then why do you dislike him exceedingly?”
“Must I answer that question?” he rebuked her gently.
“Sorry!” she answered. “I didn’t mean to be nosey.”
“Todd’s is not a negative character,” he went on, ignoring her apology. “I told you he had a host of friends. It is to his credit that he has, also, a host of enemies.”
The girl smiled. She mistrusted this man exceedingly, for all his apparent good breeding. He was too cool, quite too sure of himself, too commanding. Nevertheless, he had a way with him—a way of facing facts and issues.
“I think,” she said presently, “that eventually you and Mr. Todd will grow to be good friends.”
“I’m glad you’re beginning to like me,” he replied gratefully.
She bit her lip. She could have pinched him for that speech. She cast about in her mind for something to say to that—something that would put him in his place; but before she could wither him the golden moment for doing so had passed. Perhaps, too, it would be just as well to ignore him. In a sense she was his guest. He had rescued her from a terrible predicament and if he chose to trade on her sense of obligation to him . . .
At a distance there came to the girl the faint hum of an airplane motor. Simultaneously she and Purdy, glanced skyward.
“Mail plane or army?” Miss Ormsby queried.
“Neither. It’s mine. I recognize the purr of my own bus.”
He stopped the car, got out and stood in the trail, waving a white handkerchief. The plane circled lower and lower until it was not more than five hundred yards overhead, when apparently the aviator recognized Purdy, for at once he commenced opening and closing his muffler in a most inexplicable manner. Purdy stood with bent head listening until the aviator ceased his peculiar actions; then the girl saw her strange host wave both arms skyward in a gesture that even she knew meant “Very well, I understand.”
Immediately the airplane zoomed upward and disappeared into the northeast. Purdy climbed back into his car and resumed their journey. He drove in silence for ten miles; then, suddenly aware of his lack of companionship, he turned to Gail Ormsby.
“That was my mechanician. He had a message for me, so he flew over and gave it to me in the international code—opening and closing his muffler. Just dots and dashes, Miss Ormsby, and if nobody is hurrying one, one can make them with a motor or a telegraph instrument.”
“We are not very far from the Mexican Border, are we, Mr. Purdy?”
“About an hour by airplane.”
“I know now what you are,” she challenged. “You’re a bootlegger—operating with automobile and airplane, and running contraband liquor across the Border.”
“Well, it will not be necessary to tell the world about it, Miss Ormsby.”
“I’ll not. Nevertheless, Mr. Purdy, it does seem a great pity that a man of your obvious good breeding and education should stoop to that illicit traffic, with its shootings and killings, its dodging and hiding, its bribery and corruption. There are so many other ways for an intelligent man to make money.”
He laughed softly. “It’s so many long years since I’ve been lectured about my morals,” he declared. “Please go on. I like it.”
She flushed at his raillery. “Do you fly airplanes, too? You said that was your own bus.”
“Oh, yes, I fly them!”
“I dare say you learned during the war.”
“Right you are.”
“Were you an enlisted man or an officer?”
“I was an officer. In fact, I am an officer still. I’m a major of aviation in the Officers’ Reserve Corps.”
“You are presumed to be a gentleman, too, aren’t you, Major Purdy?”
“Please,” he pleaded, “do not be too hard on me.”
“I cannot understand the character of a man who will risk his life to serve his country in war but who in time of peace risks his life with equal carelessness to break his country’s laws and make a few dirty dollars in poisonous whisky.”
“I can understand such fellows very well, Miss Ormsby.”
“Do you mean to tell me you defend your actions?”
“Indeed, I do. You see, I’m not a bootlegger.”
“Then why didn’t you say so in the first place? You led me to believe——”
“I didn’t do anything of the sort. Nobody has to lead you to believe anything. You are very observant and deductive—so you jump to conclusions.”
“But you permitted me to lecture you——”
“I liked it. If you hadn’t been interested in me you wouldn’t have lectured me.”
She flushed and her eyes sparkled dangerously. She disliked being drawn into traps and having fun poked at her by total strangers. “Well, what is your business?” she demanded.
“I’m a cattleman, Miss Ormsby.”
“You are the first cattleman I have ever seen who wore park riding boots, English riding breeches and tailor-made shirts. Do you herd your cows from an airplane?”
“Please do not be provoked, Miss Ormsby. I’m an alien in this country and I fly around it in an airplane a great deal for the reason that I like to keep in practice, it saves me much valuable time, I avoid traveling rough, uncared-for roads and I like to give the natives of the country something to talk about, something to look forward to. They expect to see me crash and perish one day, and when that happens they’ll say, ‘Serves the durned fool right. Why didn’t he stick to hosses?’ ”
The girl sighed. “I think you’re a most unusual person,” she admitted reluctantly.
“And you’re glad I’m not a bootlegger?”
“I would be glad to be certain nobody is a bootlegger.”
“I would have preferred a more definite reply, but never mind.”
“Have you ever crashed?”
“A couple of times.”
“Get hurt?”
“Roughed up a little once.”
“But you must find it quite expensive maintaining and repairing an airplane.”
“Not at all. I have half a dozen ships at my ranch. When one is out of business, I fly another.”
“Indeed!”
“They were supposed to be fighting planes in nineteen seventeen, but they were demoded in nineteen nineteen, so I bought six of them from the government for two hundred and fifty dollars each. I have six spare four-cylinder motors that cost me a hundred and fifty dollars each, so I expect to fly for quite a few years. A hundred miles an hour is fast enough when nobody is pursuing one. I attract considerable attention and criticism flying around this country. It is said that I frighten the cows and their milk turns sour.”
“Do you ever fly over the Box K Ranch?”
“Very frequently. There is an alfalfa field just below the ranch-house. It is excellent landing ground and my plane doesn’t hurt the alfalfa; but Ira Todd thinks it does, so I cannot land there any more and that is an inconvenience. You see, I am the volunteer aerial patrol over the Cuyamaca National Forest.”
“Why, I thought our national forests were patrolled by the air forces of the United States Army, Major.”
“They used to be, but this year the United States Army Air Force is short of gasoline and lubricating oil. Congress is in a parsimonious mood except in the purchase of votes. Five billion dollars’ worth of our navy is rusting to disuse because we cannot afford men to care for the ships, and the last stand of public timber in our country may risk loss by fire in order that we may save a few thousand dollars’ worth of gasoline. Our so-called economy has so crippled the air forces that we haven’t flyers enough to go around. They are needed at flying fields to act as instructors. Consequently, I’ve taken over the Cuyamaca patrol myself.”
“You amazing man! Who pays for your oil and gasoline?”
“Oh, I pay for it myself when I have to! Last year the cattlemen who have grazing permits in the forest reserve donated about two thousand dollars to the cause, but this year the cattlemen are in a bad, bad way financially, so I’m not asking them for a donation which they cannot afford.”
“Do you make a daily patrol?”
“Good gracious, no! I am much too busy a man. I do try very hard, however, to get around three times a week. The forest ranger service is always on the job, it is tremendously efficient and tremendously loyal, and between them and me we’ve been pretty lucky. Haven’t had a sizable fire in three years, although we would have had eight if I hadn’t discovered them in embryo while on patrol and given the rangers prompt warning.”
“How do you warn them?”
“I circle low over the ranger station and honk my horn until I attract the attention of the ranger; then I drop him a message. He warns the other stations by telephone. It’s a heap of fun.”
“I think it’s a heap of work—hard, expensive, dangerous work.”
“Well, you don’t mind that after you get interested in the forest ranger service, Miss Ormsby. There is one department of the federal service where there is a minimum of graft, politics and self-seeking; it’s a hard and lonely life and only a certain type of man will stand it. It is, however, the only life such men can live happily. They are interested in nothing except trees and animal life—nature-lovers, every one of them. They are underpaid, unappreciated, unknown; their world is the Forest Reserve area they are told off to guard. Soldiers die in battle. So do forest rangers, and when they do they die harder and more dreadful deaths than soldiers. Had a good friend of mine burned to death last year. His widow is the lookout on San Buenaventura. Spends her young life ten miles from human society, looking after a baby and a telescope.”
“And you enjoy playing the game with the forest ranger service, even to the extent of paying a high price to participate?”
“Oh, I’m not exactly a philanthropist, Miss Ormsby! I hold a distinctly worth-while grazing permit in the Cuyamaca. It is my summer range for five thousand cattle. My winter range, farther down, contains a hundred thousand acres of fair grazing land. Seven thousand acres of it lie in the upper end of the valley of the main Rio Hondo, and that’s where I cut my wild hay. Of course a fire in the Cuyamaca Reserve can spread to my winter range and burn up all the hay I cut and stack during the summer to tide me over a hard winter. I hate to have a starving cow ask me for hay and be told to help herself to sage-brush—all because the hay has been burned in a fire started by some ignorant, careless, lazy, unappreciative hunter or camper who neglects to put out his camp-fire,” he told her.
“That must be, indeed, a sad experience.”
“Cows are so forlorn and forgiving when they’re starving that it makes the experience all the sadder,” he went on. “I tell you, Miss Ormsby, when a simple, confiding old cow puts all of her faith and trust in you and you go back on her, you feel mighty mean about it.”
“The Box K Ranch runs cattle in the Cuyamaca,” the girl informed him.
“A few hundred head,” he replied indifferently.
They topped a long high hill; afar the cluster of lights that marked Arguello shone through the darkness. “We leave El Valle de los Ojos Negros here,” Purdy announced.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the valley of the black eyes.”
“How queer! What is the name symbolic of?”
“There are half a dozen little shallow lakes in the upper end of that valley. They are invaluable as drinking places for cattle. Viewed from the hills late in the day, two of these lakes nestling in that valley look like two dark eyes set in a vast and ugly human face. Then, too, many men have quarreled over that water and black eyes have frequently resulted. So the Mexicans hereabouts have coined for the valley the title of El Valle de los Ojos Negros.” He leaned toward her anxiously. “I hope you’re not afraid to make this journey with me, Miss Ormsby.”
“No, I’m not afraid of you, Major Purdy. I made up my mind to that back at San Onofre. I had to trust you then, so I decided to trust you all the way.”
“Thank you. You will not have reason to regret that decision, I’m sure. Well, here we are at the thriving metropolis of Arguello.”
They crossed a long wooden bridge over an arroyo and were in the main street. Purdy drew in at the sidewalk before a false-fronted frame building, dimly visible in the light from a pool hall across the street.
“Chan has closed up early,” he remarked as he looked into the unlighted windows. “Hello! The door is open. Dare say he’s just put out the lights. Well, I’ll rout him out and he’ll fix us a snack in a pig’s whisper.”
He alighted from the car and stepped into the dark and deserted little restaurant. “Chan Hock!” he called repeatedly, but receiving no reply he came back to his car, procured an electric torch and returned to the restaurant. After a few minutes spent in a more thorough investigation Gail Ormsby saw him emerge again and cross the street to the pool hall. In a few minutes he returned and climbed behind the wheel again.
“Ira Todd’s friends have wrecked Chan’s restaurant and put him out of business completely,” he announced. “The place is a riot of broken crockery, chairs, tables and kitchen utensils, but a Mexican swamper over in the pool hall informs me that the Chink made his escape.”
He glided off down the street, but before he had proceeded half a block he jammed down his brakes. In the light of his headlights the girl saw, standing at the curb, a battered, weather-beaten light farm wagon, with two mules attached.
“That’s my chuck wagon!” Purdy exclaimed. “The attack on the restaurant took place about five o’clock this afternoon. My cook, driving the chuck wagon, should have reached Arguello about that hour, en route home. I told him to stop at Chan’s restaurant for supper—too much trouble to outspan on the road and cook it himself. Now, he had two led horses when he started. Where are they?”
“Why spend your time wondering? Didn’t you guess where I came from?” Gail Ormsby suggested pointedly.
“Right you are. Pardon me while I go into a small trance and consult my ectoplasm.” He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and howled softly, like a hungry, lonely dog, the while his long brown hands fanned the night air in a manner akin to the manual protestations of a pawnbroker.
“I see a light,” he murmured. “It grows brighter. I see a hungry Mexican cook sitting in a restaurant presided over by a temperamental Chinaman. The Mexican and the Chinaman are friends. The Chinaman even so far offends against public morals and good taste, as to address the Mexican cook in terrible Spanish. Suddenly a mob composed of friends of Ira Todd’s and the usual number of men who delight to be present at an outrage, provided hardier spirits attend to the dirty work, starts across the street from yonder pool hall. The leader is carrying a rope. The Mexican promptly leaves the restaurant, and the Chinaman, realizing that discretion is the better part of valor, harkens to the words of wisdom which the Mexican tosses over his shoulder as he departs.
“Hastily locking the front door, the Chinaman departs via the back door and runs around the block, where he is met by the Mexican, who is mounted on one of the best, fastest and toughest cow-horses in New Mexico, and leading another. With a prayer of gratitude to his heathen gods, the Chinaman mounts and the friends go away from there in a very great hurry. While nobody in Arguello is desirous of lynching the Mexican, nevertheless the said Mexican realizes that, having in a moment of impulsiveness promised the Chinaman a horse and made good on that promise, he is going to be decidedly unpopular if he remains in Arguello to face the disappointed mob. He realizes, too, that he is but a lowly Mexican ranch cook whom nobody loves, but the Chinaman is a friend of his boss, and therefore it is up to him to do exactly what his boss would do under the same circumstances.
“Why, then, remain in Arguello to defend his actions against superior numbers? There exists but one reason. This chuck wagon and equipment, these mules were all entrusted to his keeping. He is responsible for them. He dare not abandon them. But, no, señor! Caramba, no! Señor Purdy will pass within the hour. He will stop at the restaurant for his supper. He will observe the outfit standing at the side of Main Street, and he will institute an investigation and discover things. Forthwith he will engage some worthy citizen to take up the uncompleted labors of his servant, Joaquin José Ramon Oreña y Sanchez, and see to it that the outfit reaches the ranch safely. And, having wotted the which, Joaquin José Ramon and his friend from China faded away into the hills.”
Purdy ceased flapping his hands and sat up with a little cry of fright and surprise. “Have I been talking wildly, Miss Ormsby?” he demanded anxiously. “I think I’ve been in a trance or something.”
“The reputations of the seers of this world are safe in your hands, Mr. Purdy. In our own quaint American patois, you said a mouthful. Now, when and where do we eat?”
“I do not know,” Purdy answered cheerfully, “but the ravens fed Elijah, and inasmuch as I think I have more brains than a raven, you just hold the thought that I’ll feed you.” He swung his car in back of the chuck wagon and got out. The girl saw him rummaging around in the bed of the wagon and flashing his electric torch among a number of bundles and boxes there. Presently he returned to her carrying a gunny-sack half full of something and he put it in the tonneau.
“The citizens of Arguello and surrounding territory may riot, threaten, destroy property and lynch folks, but they have one great, triumphant virtue,” he announced. “They are honest. Nobody ever sinks so low as to steal things from one’s automobile or chuck wagon. I suspected that Joaquin José Ramon Oreña y Sanchez might have some grub left in the chuck box, and sure enough he had. Now, if you will sit here quietly until I can find a Mexican who will engage to drive this outfit home, I’ll be your debtor. I’ll not be gone very long.”
He returned in about fifteen minutes with a Mexican, who tethered Bud Shannon’s horse to the tail of the chuck wagon, climbed on the seat and drove away. “And now,” said Lee Purdy cheerfully as he started his motor, “we will vamose.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that, it being no longer necessary to set our pace to conform to that of my unfortunate friend’s horse, we will make tracks for the Enchanted Hill.”
“And what, pray, may the Enchanted Hill be?”
“That is the seat of the Purdy family, Miss Ormsby. I’m the only Purdy who has ever sat on it. All the other Purdys but one think it is the most gosh-awful seat in the world, but it’s beautiful to me and I love it; and that, I dare say, is sufficient excuse for the streak of sentiment which prompted me to call it the Enchanted Hill.”
“How poetic you are, Mr. Purdy!”
“Not at all. My little sister coined that name for our ranch home. She lives with me at La Cuesta Encantada.”
“Indeed!”
“Quite so. And just as a sop to your natural feminine curiosity I will admit now that there is not, nor has there ever been, any Mrs. Lee Purdy.”
Gail Ormsby chuckled at his astuteness and joyous frankness.
“So your sister keeps house for you? How nice!”
“Yes, she’s queen of the castle. She isn’t very well.”
“Oh, I’m sorry!”
“Tuberculosis,” he explained. “She’s just twenty years old and she’s been ill two years. But she’s getting better on the Enchanted Hill. I’m going to make a hand out of Hallie yet, if she doesn’t die of loneliness.”
“And you are taking me to the Enchanted Hill tonight, Mr. Purdy?”
“Such is my pious intention, Miss Ormsby.”
“But what will your sister think when you bring home to her a strange girl you’ve picked up on the road?”
“She’ll think I’m a very thoughtful brother to bring such a nice present home for her. She’ll make you very welcome.”
“You are very kind and hospitable, Mr. Purdy, but you forget I have my own ranch to go to!”
He snapped his fingers petulantly. “Confound it! I forgot all about that, Miss Ormsby. Well, you can stay with us a couple of days, can you not? I’d be obliged to you if you could see your way clear to do that. Hallie will enjoy you so—and so will I. By the way, here’s the railroad hospital. Shall we drop in and see if we have enough corpses for a mess? Mr. Ira Todd was headed this way the last I saw of him.”
“Let’s,” she agreed, and they paused before a white-painted, two-story frame building, with a veranda around it and a lawn and shrubbery in front. The nurse on duty met them in the hall and was presented to Gail Ormsby.
“Well, watchman,” Lee Purdy queried, “what of the night?”
“Eight o’clock and all’s well, Mr. Purdy.”
“Is a perverse fate still withholding Ira Todd from his natural habitat, yon grass-grown cemetery?”
“Mr. Todd will recover in a day or two, we think. He sustained a slight fracture of the skull, but fortunately it is not a basal fracture.”
“Lucky Mr. Todd! By the way, I sent another patient here—one Bud Shannon. How fares that punctured hombre?”
“Unless traumatic pneumonia should develop he has a fighting chance for recovery.”
“Thank you,” said Lee Purdy, and turned disconsolately toward his traveling companion. “There are days,” he complained, “when a fellow cannot win a single bet.” Then to the night nurse, “Good night.” He drenched her with his bright and whimsical smile and departed with his unwilling guest.
About two miles out of Arguello Lee Purdy ran his car down on a sandy bar of the Rio Hondo and stopped. “Here’s where we eat,” he explained, and in a few minutes he had a camp-fire crackling between two flat rocks. He used another rock for a kitchen table and cut two large steaks from a sirloin roast purloined from Joaquin José Ramon’s grub box. From a canteen he poured water for coffee and set his coffee-pot on the coals. Next he set out two tin cups, a salt-and-pepper shaker, a loaf of bread and a paper bag containing brown sugar.
“You might slice the bread while I barbecue these steaks,” he suggested, and while the girl obeyed he cut and stripped of its bark a green willow fork. He sharpened the ends of the fork and hardened and dried them for a few minutes over the fire, after which he hung the steaks between them, dusted them liberally with salt and pepper and held them over a bed of glowing coals. By the time the steaks had been barbecued the coffee was at the boil; and with a huge beefsteak sandwich in one hand and a tin cup of excellent coffee in the other the pair sat on the running-board of Lee Purdy’s car and supped.
“Did the ravens furnish Elijah with paper napkins?” she ventured to inquire demurely as the last of the meal disappeared between her gravy-stained lips.
“No, indeed. Elijah was a practical prophet and licked his chops and fingers. However, I think we may avoid that.” He handed her a roll of clean white waste, a supply of which he kept in one of the seat pockets for wiping his hands after working on the motor.
The girl sighed with contentment and pleasure, and in the glow of the headlights he warmed to the bright and friendly face she raised to him. “I do so enjoy picnics,” she declared, “and this one was thoroughly enjoyable.”
They proceeded on their journey. About ten o’clock the car climbed a long grade and came to a halt under a porte-cochère before a low white adobe house that gleamed in the starlight. A noisy pack of foxhounds and field dogs, with a few Airedale terriers and two comical little Scotties, leaped up on the running-board to welcome their master to the seat of the Purdy family; a beamish Mexican woman opened the door and stood there, silhouetted in the light that streamed from within. Purdy flung her a quick, anxious query in Spanish and received one brief and casual in reply. He nodded with satisfaction and turned to assist Gail.
“We’ll leave your trunk right here in the car for tonight,” he explained. “Conchita will bring your hand-bag to your room.”
He bowed to her. “You are welcome to La Cuesta Encantada, Miss Ormsby. As my Gaelic Hieland ancestors would have it, Caidi mlle faltaha—ten thousand welcomes.”
“I think you’re quite the nicest desperado I have ever met.” The girl beamed upon him with frank, ingenuous approval. “My lot has now fallen in a very pleasant place indeed.”
From the veranda she stepped into a large living-room. The adobe walls had been plastered and calcimined, then painted in old ivory. The furniture was old Spanish and large bright Navajo rugs covered the floor, with a tremendous brown Kadiak bearskin rug in front of an open fireplace large enough to roast a yearling calf. A log fire crackled and threw shadows into the subdued light cast by a reading lamp; on the mantel were numerous pieces of Pueblo Indian pottery; half a dozen well done landscapes challenged the bareness of the walls and in one corner Gail Ormsby observed a baby grand piano.
“You must be chilled after that long night ride,” Purdy suggested. “I am.” He took possession of her coat and hat and laid them on a chair. “Now, while you’re enjoying that fire I’ll go get Hallie.”
“Not necessary, Lee. Here I am,” a languid voice spoke from the doorway. “I was just about to retire when I heard you come in.”
Gail Ormsby turned to face a frail girl whose white face almost gleamed in the dim light. She was gazing at Gail, surprised, with a welcome and a query combined in the glance.
Purdy stepped to her side, placed his arm around her waist and half drew her, half led her to Gail. “This is my little sister, Miss Hallie Purdy,” he said. “Hallie, this is Miss Gail Ormsby, of Los Angeles.”
Hallie offered a thin little hand and a glad smile. “I found Miss Ormsby at San Onofre,” her brother explained. “She got off the Overland there, en route to the Box K Ranch. For some reason nobody met her there, so I brought her home with me.”
“And you did exactly right—as usual,” said Hallie, and presented her cheek as her brother stooped to kiss it. Her large dark eyes, very bright, beamed upon him a profound affection. “I’ve been very, very well since you left, darling,” she replied to an unspoken query. “Please sit on the divan before the fire, Miss Ormsby. Lee, what has happened to you? There is blood on your shoulder and a hole in your coat.”
“Got pecked by a cow,” he fibbed readily. “Reached for me over the edge of the loading chute and scraped me a trifle. Any news?”
“None except over the radio, dear. Did you call for the mail at Arguello?”
Her brother slapped his thigh in huge disgust. “Forgot all about it, Hallie. Don’t know what’s the matter with me lately. I think I have an Edam cheese for a head.”
Hallie patted his hand forgivingly and turned to their guest. “We would be quite lonely here were it not for the radio,” she explained. “People who dwell in cities regard the radio as a pleasing fad, but when one’s closest neighbor is twenty miles distant the radio is a blessing. Before we got the radio we had to depend entirely upon wireless. Lee became an expert operator during the war, so he installed a receiving set here, and after dinner he used to listen in. Sometimes we caught interesting world news.”
“You appear to have exercised considerable discrimination in your selection of a brother,” said Gail.
“Most people appreciate Lee. Don’t they, darling?”
“Don’t make me blush, Hallie.”
Gail sat between them on the divan, while she and Purdy basked gratefully in the glow of the burning logs. The conversation turned to a discussion of the country, the life of the Purdys, cattle conditions. Purdy realized, however, that his guest was very weary, so in about ten minutes he glanced at his watch saying, “Hallie, I think we might show Miss Ormsby to her room and then go to bed ourselves. You’re up extraordinarily late, and you know that’s against orders.”
He picked Hallie up in his arms and carried her out of the room, down a hall and out to a rear veranda, which opened on a patio enclosed on two sides by an angle formed by two wings of the house and on the other two sides by an adobe wall. The still night was heavy with the fragrance of flowers, and Gail could hear a fountain splashing softly out in the midst of that fragrance. Along the veranda they proceeded; at the door of a guest chamber Purdy set his sister on her feet and turned to Gail Ormsby, who followed.
“Here is your room, Miss Ormsby. Hallie’s nurse lives on your right and Hallie lives on your left, while I hole up across the patio. Good night. Hallie, after you’ve said good night to Miss Ormsby see that you go straight to bed.” He kissed her and disappeared down the shadow of the veranda.
