Her Prairie Knight
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B. M. Bower (B.M. Sinclair) >> Her Prairie Knight
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8 Scanned by Mary Starr of Glendale, California.
HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT
by B. M. Bower (B.M. Sinclair)
HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT
CONTENTS
1. Stranded on the Prairie
2. Handsome Cowboy to the Rescue
3. Tilt With Sir Redmond
4. Beatrice Learns a New Language
5. The Search for Dorman
6. Mrs. Lansell's Lecture
7. Beatrice's Wild Ride
8. Dorman Plays Cupid
9. What It Meant to Keith
10. Pine Ridge Range Ablaze
11. Sir Redmond Waits His Answer
12. Held Up by Mr. Kelly
13. Keith's Masterful Wooing
14. Sir Redmond Gets His Answer
HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT
CHAPTER 1
Stranded on the Prairie.
"By George, look behind us! I fancy we are going to have a storm." Four
heads turned as if governed by one brain; four pairs of eyes, of varied
color and character, swept the wind-blown wilderness of tender green,
and gazed questioningly at the high-piled thunderheads above. A small
boy, with an abundance of yellow curls and white collar, almost
precipitated himself into the prim lap of a lady on the rear seat.
"Auntie, will God have fireworks? Say, auntie, will He? Can I say
prayers widout kneelin' down'? Uncle Redmon' crowds so. I want to pray
for fireworks, auntie. Can I?"
"Do sit down, Dorman. You'll fall under the wheel, and then auntie would
not have any dear little boy. Dorman, do you hear me? Redmond, do take
that child down! How I wish Parks were here. I shall have nervous
prostration within a fortnight."
Sir Redmond Hayes plucked at the white collar, and the small boy
retired between two masculine forms of no mean proportions. His voice,
however, rose higher.
"You'll get all the fireworks you want, young man, without all that
hullabaloo," remarked the driver, whom Dorman had been told, at the
depot twenty miles back, he must call his Uncle Richard.
"I love storms," came cheerfully from the rear seat--but the voice was
not the prim voice of "auntie." "Do you have thunder and lightning out
here, Dick?"
"We do," assented Dick. "We don't ship it from the East in refrigerator
cars, either. It grows wild."
The cheerful voice was heard to giggle.
"Richard," came in tired, reproachful accents from a third voice behind
him, "you were reared in the East. I trust you have not formed the
pernicious habit of speaking slightingly of your birthplace."
That, Dick knew, was his mother. She had not changed appreciably since
she had nagged him through his teens. Not having seen her since, he was
certainly in a position to judge.
"Trix asked about the lightning," he said placatingly, just as he was
accustomed to do, during the nagging period. "I was telling her."
"Beatrice has a naturally inquiring mind," said the tired voice, laying
reproving stress upon the name.
"Are you afraid of lightning, Sir Redmond?" asked the cheerful
girl-voice.
Sir Redmond twisted his neck to smile back at her. "No, so long as it
doesn't actually chuck me over."
After that there was silence, so far as human voices went, for a time.
"How much farther is it, Dick?" came presently from the girl.
"Not more than ten--well, maybe twelve--miles. You'll think it's
twenty, though, if the rain strikes 'Dobe Flat before we do. That's just
what it's going to do, or I'm badly mistaken. Hawk! Get along, there!"
"We haven't an umbrella with us," complained the tired one. "Beatrice,
where did you put my raglan?"
"In the big wagon, mama, along with the trunks and guns and saddles, and
Martha and Katherine and James."
"Dear me! I certainly told you, Beatrice--"
"But, mama, you gave it to me the last thing, after the maids were in
the wagon, and said you wouldn't wear it. There isn't room here for
another thing. I feel like a slice of pressed chicken."
"Auntie, I want some p'essed chicken. I'm hungry, auntie! I want some
chicken and a cookie--and I want some ice-cream."
"You won't get any," said the young woman, with the tone of finality.
"You can't eat me, Dorman, and I'm the only thing that looks good enough
to eat."
"Beatrice!" This, of course, from her mother, whose life seemed
principally made up of a succession of mental shocks, brought on by her
youngest, dearest, and most irrepressible.
"I have Dick's word for it, mama; he said so, at the depot."
"I want some chicken, auntie."
"There is no chicken, dear," said the prim one. "You must be a patient
little man."
"I won't. I'm hungry. Mens aren't patient when dey're hungry." A small,
red face rose, like a tiny harvest moon, between the broad, masculine
backs on the front seat.
"Dorman, sit down! Redmond!"
A large, gloved hand appeared against the small moon and it set
ignominiously and prematurely, in the place where it had risen. Sir
Redmond further extinguished it with the lap robe, for the storm,
whooping malicious joy, was upon them.
First a blinding glare and a deafening crash. Then rain--sheets of it,
that drenched where it struck. The women huddled together under the
doubtful protection of the light robe and shivered. After that, wind
that threatened to overturn the light spring wagon; then hail that
bounced and hopped like tiny, white rubber balls upon the ground.
The storm passed as suddenly as it came, but the effect remained. The
road was sodden with the water which had fallen, and as they went down
the hill to 'Dobe Flat the horses strained at the collar and plodded
like a plow team. The wheels collected masses of adobe, which stuck like
glue and packed the spaces between the spokes. Twice Dick got out and
poked the heavy mess from the wheels with Sir Redmond's stick--which was
not good for the stick, but which eased the drag upon the horses
wonderfully--until the wheels accumulated another load.
"Sorry to dirty your cane," Dick apologized, after the second halt. "You
can rinse it off, though, in the creek a few miles ahead."
"Don't mention it!" said Sir Redmond, somewhat dubiously. It was his
favorite stick, and he had taken excellent care of it. It was finely
polished, and it had his name and regiment engraved upon the silver
knob--and a date which the Boers will not soon forget, nor the English,
for that matter.
"We'll soon be over the worst," Dick told them, after a time. "When we
climb that hill we'll have a hard, gravelly trail straight to the ranch.
I'm sorry it had to storm; I wanted you to enjoy this trip."
"I am enjoying it," Beatrice assured him. "It's something new, at any
rate, and anything is better than the deadly monotony of Newport."
"Beatrice!" cried her mother "I'm ashamed of you!"
"You needn't be, mama. Why won't you just be sorry for yourself, and let
it end there? I know you hated to come, poor dear; but you wouldn't
think of letting me come alone, though I'm sure I shouldn't have minded.
This is going to be a delicious summer--I feel it in my bones."
"Be-atrice!"
"Why, mama? Aren't young ladies supposed to have bones?"
"Young ladies are not supposed to make use of unrefined expressions.
Your poor sister."
"There, mama. Dear Dolly didn't live upon stilts, I'm sure. Even when
she married."
"Be-atrice!"
"Dear me, mama! I hope you are not growing peevish. Peevish elderly
people--"
"Auntie! I want to go home!" the small boy wailed.
"You cannot go home now, dear," sighed his guardian angel. "Look at the
pretty--" She hesitated, groping vaguely for some object to which she
might conscientiously apply the adjective.
"Mud," suggested Beatrice promptly "Look at the wheels, Dorman; they're
playing patty-cake. See, now they say, 'Roll 'em, and roll 'em,' and
now, 'Toss in the oven to bake!" And now--"
"Auntie, I want to get out an' play patty-cake, like de wheels. I want
to awf'lly!"
"Beatrice, why did you put that into his head?" her mother demanded,
fretfully.
"Never mind, honey," called Beatrice cheeringly. "You and I will make
hundreds of mud pies when we get to Uncle Dick's ranch. Just think, hon,
oodles of beautiful, yellow mud just beside the door!"
"Look here, Trix! Seems to me you're promising a whole lot you can't
make good. I don't live in a 'dobe patch."
"Hush, Dick; don't spoil everything. You don't know Dorman.'
"Beatrice! What must Miss Hayes and Sir Redmond think of you? I'm sure
Dorman is a sweet child, the image of poor, dear Dorothea, at his age."
"We all think Dorman bears a strong resemblance to his father," said his
Aunt Mary.
Beatrice, scenting trouble, hurried to change the subject. "What's this,
Dick--the Missouri River?"
"Hardly. This is the water that didn't fall in the buggy. It isn't deep;
it makes bad going worse, that's all."
Thinking to expedite matters, he struck Hawk sharply across the flank.
It was a foolish thing to do, and Dick knew it when he did it; ten
seconds later he knew it better.
Hawk reared, tired as he was, and lunged viciously.
The double-trees snapped and splintered; there was a brief interval of
plunging, a shower of muddy water in that vicinity, and then two
draggled, disgusted brown horses splashed indignantly to shore and took
to the hills with straps flying.
"By George!," ejaculated Sir Redmond, gazing helplessly after them. "But
this is a beastly bit of luck, don't you know!"
"Oh, you Hawk--" Dick, in consideration of his companions, finished the
remark in the recesses of his troubled soul, where the ladies could not
overhear.
"What comes next, Dick?" The voice of Beatrice was frankly curious.
"Next, I'll have to wade out and take after those--" This sentence,
also, was rounded out mentally.
"In the meantime, what shall we do?"
"You'll stay where you are--and thank the good Lord you were not upset.
I'm sorry,"--turning so that he could look deprecatingly at Miss
Hayes--"your welcome to the West has been so--er--strenuous. I'll try
and make it up to you, once you get to the ranch. I hope you won't let
this give you a dislike of the country."
"Oh, no," said the spinster politely. "I'm sure it is a--a very nice
country, Mr. Lansell."
"Well, there's nothing to be done sitting here." Dick climbed down over
the dashboard into the mud and water.
Sir Redmond was not the man to shirk duty because it happened to be
disagreeable, as the regiment whose name was engraved upon his cane
could testify. He glanced regretfully at his immaculate leggings and
followed.
"I fancy you ladies won't need any bodyguard," he said. Looking back, he
caught the light of approval shining in the eyes of Beatrice, and after
that he did not mind the mud, but waded to shore and joined in the chase
quite contentedly. The light of approval, shining in the eyes of
Beatrice, meant much to Sir Redmond.
CHAPTER 2
A Handsome Cowboy to the Rescue.
Beatrice took immediate possession of the front seat, that she might
comfort her heartbroken young nephew.
"Never mind, honey. They'll bring the horses back in a minute, and we'll
make them run every step. And when you get to Uncle Dick's ranch you'll
see the nicest things--bossy calves, and chickens, and, maybe, some
little pigs with curly tails."
All this, though alluring, failed of its purpose; the small boy
continued to weep, and his weeping was ear-splitting.
"Be still, Dorman, or you'll certainly scare all the coyotes to death."
"Where are dey?"
"Oh, all around. You keep watch, hon, and maybe you'll see one put the
tip of his nose over a hill."
"What hill?" Dorman skipped a sob, and scoured his eyes industriously
with both fists.
"M-m--that hill. That little one over there. Watch close, or you'll miss
him."
The dove of peace hovered over them, and seemed actually about to
alight. Beatrice leaned back with a relieved breath.
"It is good of you, my dear, to take so much trouble," sighed his Aunt
Mary. "How I am to manage without Parks I'm sure I cannot tell."
"You are tired, and you miss your tea." soothed Beatrice, optimistic as
to tone. "When we all have a good rest we will be all right. Dorman will
find plenty to amuse him. We are none of us exactly comfortable now."
"Comfortable!" sniffed her mother. "I am half dead. Richard wrote such
glowing letters home that I was misled. If I had dreamed of the true
conditions, Miss Hayes, I should never have sanctioned this wild idea of
Beatrice's to come out and spend the summer with Richard."
"It's coming, Be'trice! There it is! Will it bite, auntie? Say, will it
bite?"
Beatrice looked. A horseman came over the hill and was galloping down
the long slope toward them. His elbows were lifted contrary to the
mandates of the riding-school, his long legs were encased in something
brown and fringed down the sides. His gray hat was tilted rakishly up at
the back and down in front, and a handkerchief was knotted loosely
around his throat. Even at that distance he struck her as different from
any one she had ever seen.
"It's a highwayman!" whispered Mrs. Lansell "Hide your purse, my dear!"
"I--I--where?" Miss Hayes was all a-flutter with fear.
"Drop it down beside the wheel, into the water. Quick! I shall drop my
watch."
"He--he is coming on this side! He can see!" Her whisper was full of
entreaty and despair.
"Give them here. He can't see on both sides of the buggy at once." Mrs.
Lansell, being an American--a Yankee at that--was a woman of resource.
"Beatrice, hand me your watch quick!"
Beatrice paid no attention, and there was no time to insist upon
obedience. The horseman had slowed at the water's edge, and was
regarding them with some curiosity. Possibly he was not accustomed to
such a sight as the one that met his eyes. He came splashing toward
them, however, as though he intended to investigate the cause of their
presence, alone upon the prairie, in a vehicle which had no horses
attached in the place obviously intended for such attachment. When he
was close upon them he stopped and lifted the rakishly tilted gray hat.
"You seem to be in trouble. Is there anything I can do for you?" His
manner was grave and respectful, but his eyes, Beatrice observed, were
having a quiet laugh of their own.
"You can't get auntie's watch, nor gran'mama's. Gran'mama frowed 'em all
down in the mud. She frowed her money down in the mud, too," announced
Dorman, with much complacency. "Be'trice says you is a coyote. Is you?"
There was a stunned interval, during which nothing was heard but the
wind whispering things to the grass. The man's eyes stopped laughing;
his jaw set squarely; also, his brows drew perceptibly closer together.
It was Mrs. Lansell's opinion that he looked murderous.
Then Beatrice put her head down upon the little, blue velvet cap of
Dorman and laughed. There was a rollicking note in her laughter that was
irresistible, and the eyes of the man relented and joined in her mirth.
His lips forgot they were angry and insulted, and uncovered some very
nice teeth.
"We aren't really crazy," Beatrice told him, sitting up straight and
drying her eyes daintily with her handkerchief. "We were on our way to
Mr. Lansell's ranch, and the horses broke something and ran away, and
Dick--Mr. Lansell--has gone to catch them. We're waiting until he does."
"I see." From the look in his eyes one might guess that what he saw
pleased him. "Which direction did they take?"
Beatrice waved a gloved hand vaguely to the left, and, without another
word, the fellow touched his hat, turned and waded to shore and galloped
over the ridge she indicated; and the clucketycluck of his horse's hoofs
came sharply across to them until he dipped out of sight.
"You see, he wasn't a robber," Beatrice remarked, staring after him
speculatively. "How well he rides! One can see at a glance that he
almost lives in the saddle. I wonder who he is."
"For all you know, Beatrice, he may be going now to murder Richard and
Sir Redmond in cold blood. He looks perfectly hardened."
"Oh, do you think it possible?" cried Miss Hayes, much alarmed.
"No!" cried Beatrice hotly. "One who did not know your horror of
novels, mama, might suspect you of feeding your imagination upon 'penny
dreadfuls.' I'm sure he is only a cowboy, and won't harm anybody."
"Cowboys are as bad as highwaymen," contended her mother, "or worse. I
have read how they shoot men for a pastime, and without even the excuse
of robbery."
"Is it possible?" quavered Miss Hayes faintly.
"No, it isn't!" Beatrice assured her indignantly.
"He has the look of a criminal," declared Mrs. Lansell, in the positive
tone of one who speaks from intimate knowledge of the subject under
discussion. "I only hope he isn't going to murder--"
"They're coming back, mama," interrupted Beatrice, who had been
watching closely the hilltop. "No, it's that man, and he is driving the
horses."
"He's chasing them," corrected her mother testily. "A horse thief, no
doubt. He's going to catch them with his snare--"
"Lasso, mama."
"Well, lasso. Where can Richard be? To think the fellow should be so
bold! But out here, with miles upon miles of open, and no police
protection anything is possible. We might all be murdered, and no one be
the wiser for days--perhaps weeks. There, he has caught them." She
leaned back and clasped her hands, ready to meet with fortitude whatever
fate might have in store.
"He's bringing them out to us, mama. Can't you see the man is only
trying to help us?"
Mrs. Lansell, beginning herself to suspect him of honest intentions,
sniffed dissentingly and let it go at that. The fellow was certainly
leading the horses toward them, and Sir Redmond and Dick, appearing over
the hill just then, proved beyond doubt that neither had been murdered
in cold blood, or in any other unpleasant manner.
"We're all right now, mother," Dick called, the minute he was near
enough.
His mother remarked skeptically that she hoped possibly she had been in
too great haste to conceal her valuables--that Miss Hayes might not feel
grateful for her presence of mind, and was probably wondering if mud
baths were not injurious to fine, jeweled time-pieces. Mrs. Lansell was
uncomfortable, mentally and physically, and her manner was frankly
chilly when her son presented the stranger as his good friend and
neighbor, Keith Cameron. She was still privately convinced that he
looked a criminal--though, if pressed, she must surely have admitted
that he was an uncommonly good-looking young outlaw. It would seem
almost as if she regarded his being a decent, law-abiding citizen as
pure effrontery.
Miss Hayes greeted him with a smile of apprehension which plainly
amused him. Beatrice was frankly impersonal in her attitude; he
represented a new species of the genus man, and she, too, evidently
regarded him in the light of a strange animal, viewed unexpectedly at
close range.
While he was helping Dick mend the double-tree with a piece of rope, she
studied him curiously. He was tall--taller even than Sir Redmond, and
more slender. Sir Redmond had the straight, sturdy look of the soldier
who had borne the brunt of hard marches and desperate fighting; Mr.
Cameron, the lithe, unconscious grace and alertness of the man whose
work demands quick movement and quicker eye and brain. His face was
tanned to a clear bronze which showed the blood darkly beneath; Sir
Redmond's year of peace had gone far toward lightening his complexion.
Beatrice glanced briefly at him and admired his healthy color, and was
glad he did not have the look of an Indian. At the same time, she caught
herself wishing that Sir Redmond's eyes were hazel, fringed with very
long, dark lashes and topped with very straight, dark brows--eyes which
seemed always to have some secret cause for mirth, and to laugh quite
independent of the rest of the face. Still, Sir Redmond had very nice
eyes--blue, and kind, and steadfast, and altogether dependable--and his
lashes were quite nice enough for any one. In just four seconds Beatrice
decided that, after all, she did not like hazel eyes that twinkle
continually; they make one feel that one is being laughed at, which is
not comfortable. In six seconds she was quite sure that this Mr. Cameron
thought himself handsome, and Beatrice detested a man who was proud of
his face or his figure; such a man always tempted her to "make faces,"
as she used to do over the back fence when she was little.
She mentally accused him of trying to show off his skill with his rope
when he leaned and fastened it to the rig, rode out ahead and helped
drag the vehicle to shore; and it was with some resentment that she
observed the ease with which he did it, and how horse and rope seemed to
know instinctively their master's will, and to obey of their own accord.
In all that he had done--and it really seemed as if he did everything
that needed to be done, while Dick pottered around in the way--he had
not found it necessary to descend into the mud and water, to the ruin of
his picturesque, fringed chaps and high-heeled boots. He had worked at
ease, carelessly leaning from his leathern throne upon the big, roan
horse he addressed occasionally as Redcloud. Beatrice wondered where he
got the outlandish name. But, with all his imperfections, she was glad
she had met him. He really was handsome, whether he knew it or not; and
if he had a good opinion of himself, and overrated his actions--all the
more fun for herself! Beatrice, I regret to say, was not above amusing
herself with handsome young men who overrate their own charms; in fact,
she had the reputation among her women acquaintances of being a most
outrageous flirt.
In the very middle of these trouble-breeding meditations, Mr. Cameron
looked up unexpectedly and met keenly her eyes; and for some reason--let
us hope because of a guilty conscience--Beatrice grew hot and confused;
an unusual experience, surely, for a girl who had been out three
seasons, and has met calmly the eyes of many young men. Until now it had
been the young men who grew hot and confused; it had never been herself.
Beatrice turned her shoulder toward him, and looked at Sir Redmond, who
was surreptitiously fishing for certain articles beside the rear wheel,
at the whispered behest of Mrs. Lansell, and was certainly a sight to
behold. He was mud to his knees and to his elbows, and he had managed to
plaster his hat against the wheel and to dirty his face. Altogether, he
looked an abnormally large child who has been having a beautiful day of
it in somebody's duck-pond; but Beatrice was nearer, at that moment, to
loving him than she had been at any time during her six weeks'
acquaintance with him--and that is saying much, for she had liked him
from the start.
Mr. Cameron followed her glance, and his eyes did not have the laugh all
to themselves; his voice joined them, and Beatrice turned upon him and
frowned. It was not kind of him to laugh at a man who is proving his
heart to be much larger than his vanity; Beatrice was aware of Sir
Redmond's immaculateness of attire on most occasions.
"Well," said Dick, gathering up the reins, "you've helped us out of a
bad scrape, Keith. Come over and take dinner with us to-morrow night. I
expect we'll be kept riding the rim-rocks, over at the Pool, this
summer. Unless this sister of mine has changed a lot, she won't rest
till she's been over every foot of country for forty miles around. It
will just about keep our strings rode down to a whisper keeping her in
sight."
"Dear me, Richard!" said his mother. "What Jargon is this you speak?"
"That's good old Montana English, mother. You'll learn it yourself
before you leave here. I've clean forgot how they used the English
language at Yale, haven't you, Keith?"
"Just about," Keith agreed. "I'm afraid we'll shock the ladies
terribly, Dick. We ought to get out on a pinnacle with a good grammar
and practice."
"Well, maybe. We'll look for you to-morrow, sure. I want you to help map
out a circle or two for Trix. About next week she'll want to get out and
scour the range."
"Dear me, Richard! Beatrice is not a charwoman!" This, you will
understand, was from his mother; perhaps you will also understand that
she spoke with the rising inflection which conveys a reproof.
When Keith Cameron left them he was laughing quietly to himself, and
Beatrice's chin was set rather more than usual.
CHAPTER 3
A Tilt With Sir Redmond.
Beatrice, standing on the top of a steep, grassy slope, was engaged in
the conventional pastime of enjoying the view. It was a fine view, but
it was not half as good to look upon as was Beatrice herself, in her
fresh white waist and brown skirt, with her brown hair fluffing softly
in the breeze which would grow to a respectable wind later in the day,
and with her cheeks pink from climbing.
She was up where she could see the river, a broad band of blue in the
surrounding green, winding away for miles through the hills. The far
bank stood a straight two hundred feet of gay-colored rock, chiseled, by
time and stress of changeful weather, into fanciful turrets and towers.
Above and beyond, where the green began, hundreds of moving dots told
where the cattle were feeding quietly. Far away to the south, heaps of
hazy blue and purple slept in the sunshine; Dick had told her those were
the Highwoods. And away to the west, a jagged line of blue-white
glimmered and stood upon tip-toes to touch the swimming clouds--touched
them and pushed above proudly; those were the Rockies. The Bear Paws
stood behind her; nearer they were--so near they lost the glamour of
mysterious blue shadows, and became merely a sprawling group of huge,
pine-covered hills, with ranches dotted here and there in sheltered
places, with squares of fresh, dark green that spoke of growing crops.
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