Out of the Depths: A Romance of Reclamation. Bennet Robert Ames

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СКАЧАТЬ nothing; but he glanced up at the jaunty back of the tenderfoot with a look of cold enmity.

      CHAPTER III

      QUEEN OF WHAT?

      Heedless of the men behind him, Ashton rode off with his ardent gaze fixed admiringly upon his companion. The more he looked at her the more astonished and gratified he was to have found so charming a girl in this raw wilderness.

      As a city man, he might have considered the healthy color that glowed under the tan of her cheeks a trifle too pronounced, had it not been offset by the delicate mold of her features. Her eyes were as blue as alpine forget-me-nots.

      Though she sat astride and the soft coils of her chestnut hair were covered with a broad-brimmed felt hat, he was puzzled to find that there really was nothing of the Wild West cowgirl in her costume and bearing. Her modest gray riding dress was cut in the very latest style. If her manner differed from that of most young ladies of his acquaintance, it was only in her delightful frankness and total absence of affectation. Yet she could not be a city girl on a visit, for she sat her horse with the erect, long-stirruped, graceful, yielding seat peculiar to riders of the cattle ranges.

      “Do you know,” he gave voice to his curiosity, as she directed their course slantingly down the ridge away from Deep Cañon, “I am simply dying to learn, Miss Chuckie–”

      “Perhaps you had better make it ‘Miss Knowles,’” she suggested, with a quiet smile that checked the familiarity of his manner.

      “Ah, yes–pardon me!–‘Miss Knowles,’ of course,” he murmured. “But, you know, so unusual a name–”

      “You mean Chuckie?” she asked. “It formerly was quite common in the West–was often used as a nickname. My real name is Isobel. I understand that Chuckie comes from the Spanish Chiquita.”

      “Chiquita!” he exclaimed. “But that is not a regular name. It is only a term of endearment, like Nina. And you say Chuckie comes from Chiquita? Chiquita–dear one!”

      His large dark eyes glowed at her brilliant with audacious admiration. Her color deepened, but she replied with perfect composure: “You see why I prefer to be addressed as ‘Miss Knowles’–by you.”

      “Yet you permitted that common cowpuncher to call you Miss Chuckie.”

      The girl smiled ironically. “For one thing, Mr. Ashton, I have known Kid Gowan over eight years, and, for another, he is hardly a common cowpuncher.”

      “He looks ordinary enough to me.”

      “Well, well!” she rallied. “I should have thought that even to the innocent gaze of a tenderfoot–Let me hasten to explain that the common or garden variety of cowshepherd is to be distinguished in many respects from his predecessor of the Texas trail.”

      “Texas trail?” he rejoined. “Now I know you’re trying to string me. This Gowan can’t be much older than I am.”

      The girl dropped her bantering tone, and answered soberly: “He is only twenty-five, and yet he is a full generation older than you. He was born and raised in a cow camp. He is one of the few men of the type that remain to link the range of today with the vanished world of the cattle frontier.”

      “Yet you say that the fellow is only my age?”

      “In years, yes. But in type he belongs to the generation that is past–the generation of longhorns, long drives, long Colt’s, and short lives; of stampedes, and hats like yours, badmen, and Injins.”

      “Surely you cannot mean that this–You called him ‘Kid.’”

      “Kid Gowan,” she confirmed. “Yes, he holds to the old traditions even in that. There are six notches on the hilt of his ‘gun,’ if you count the two little ones he nicked for his brace of Utes.”

      “What! He is a real Indian fighter, like Kit Carson?”

      “Oh, no, it was merely a band of hide hunters that came over the line from Utah, and Mr. Gowan helped the game warden run them back to their reservation.”

      “He actually killed two of them?”

      “Yes,” replied the girl, her gravity deepening to a concerned frown. “The worst of it is that I’m not altogether certain it was necessary. Men out here, as a rule, think much too little of the life of an Indian.”

      “Ah!” murmured Ashton. “Two Indians. But didn’t you speak of six notches?”

      “Six,” confirmed the girl, her brow partly clearing. “The others were different. Three were rustlers. The sheriff’s posse overtook them. Both sides were firing. Kid circled around and shot three. He happened to have a long-range rifle. Daddy says they threw up their hands when the first one fell; but Kid explained to me that he was too far away to see it.”

      “Ah!” murmured Ashton the second time, and he put up his hand to the hole in the front of his sombrero.

      “The last was two years ago,” went on the girl. “There was a dispute over a maverick. Kid was tried and acquitted on his plea of self-defense. There were no witnesses. He claimed that the other man drew first. Two empty shells were found in the other man’s revolver, and only one in Kid’s. That cleared him.”

      Ashton took off his hat and stared at the holes where the heavy forty-four bullet had gone in and gone out. He was silent.

      “You see, poor Kid has been unfortunate,” remarked the girl, as she headed her pony down over the edge of the mesa. “That time with the rustlers, all the posse were firing, and he just happened to be the one that got the best aim; and the time with the Indians, I’m sure he did not shoot to kill. It just happened that way. He told me so himself.”

      Ashton ran his tongue over his lip. “Yes–I suppose so,” he muttered.

      “Kid has all the good qualities and only a few of the faults of the old-time cowboys,” went on the girl. “He is almost fiercely loyal to Daddy’s interests. That’s why he led a raid on a sheep outfit, four years ago, when almost half of a large flock were run over into Deep Cañon–poor innocent beasts! Daddy was furious with Kid; but there was no legal proof as to who were members of the attacking party, and the sheep were destroying our range. All of Daddy’s cattle would have starved.”

      “He was not punished?” murmured Ashton.

      “Daddy could not be expected to discharge him, could he, when Kid did it to save our range? You see, it was just because he was so very loyal. You must not think from these things that he–It is true he is suspicious of strangers, but he always has been very kind and gentle to me. I am very fond of him.”

      “You are?” exclaimed Ashton, stirred from his uneasy depression. “I should hardly have thought him the kind to interest a girl like you.”

      “Really?” she bantered. “Why not? I have lived on the range ever since I was fourteen.”

      He stared at her incredulously. “Since you were fourteen?”

      “For nine years,” she added, smiling at his astonishment.

      “But–it can’t be,” he protested, his eyes on her stylish costume. “At least, not all the time.”

      She nodded at him encouragingly. СКАЧАТЬ