30,000 On the Hoof. Zane Grey

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СКАЧАТЬ she saw Indians of a different type, slender, lithe, with cord bands around their black hair. They had lean clear-cut faces, sombre as masks. Mexicans in huge sombreros lolled in the background.

      Then Lucinda’s swift gaze alighted upon a broad-shouldered, powerfully built young man, in his shirt sleeves and with his blue jeans tucked in high boots. Logan! She sustained a combined shock and thrill. She would have known that strong tanned face anywhere. He stood bareheaded, with piercing eyes on the alighting passengers. Lucinda felt a rush of pride. The boy she knew had grown into a man, hard, stern, even in that expectant moment. But he was more than merely handsome. There appeared to be something proven about him.

      Lucinda suddenly realized she must follow the porter, who took her grips, out of the coach. She could not resist a pat to her hair and a readjustment of her hat. Then she went out.

      The porter was not quick enough to help her down the steep steps. That act was performed gallantly by a strange youthful individual, no less than Lucinda’s first cowboy, red-haired, keen-faced, with a blue dancing devil in his eyes. He squeezed her arm.

      “Lady, air yu meetin’ anyone?” he queried, as if his life depended on her answer.

      Lucinda looked over his head as if he had not been there. But she liked him. Leaving her grips where the porter had set them she walked up the platform, passing less then ten feet from Logan. He did not recognize her. That failure both delighted and frightened her. She would return and give him another chance.

      She walked a few rods up the platform, and when she turned back she was reveling in the situation. Logan Huett had sent for his bride and did not know her when she looked point-blank at him. He had left his post at the rail. She located him coming up the platform. A moment later she found herself an object of undisguised speculation by three cowboys, one of whom was the red-head.

      Lucinda slowed her pace. It would be fun to accost Logan before these bold westerners. This was an unfortunate impulse, as through it she heard remarks that made her neck and face burn.

      Logan had halted just beyond the red-haired cowboy. His gray glance took Lucinda in from head to foot and back again—a swift questioning baffled look. Then Lucinda swept by the cowboys and spoke:

      “Logan, don’t you know me?”

      “Ah!—no, you can’t be her,” he blurted out. “Lucinda! It is you!”

      “Yes, Logan. I knew you from the train.”

      He made a lunge for her, eager and clumsy, and kissed her heartily, missing her lips. “To think I didn’t know my old sweetheart!” His gray eyes, that had been like bits of ice glistening in the sun, shaded and softened with a warm glad light that satisfied Lucinda’s yearning heart.

      “Have I changed so much?” she asked, happily, and that nameless dread broke and vanished in the released tumult within her breast.

      “Well, I should smile you have,” he said. “Yet, somehow you’re coming back. . . . Lucinda, the fact is I didn’t expect so—so strapping and handsome a girl.”

      “That’s a doubtful compliment, Logan,” she replied with a laugh. “But I hope you like me.”

      “I’m afraid I do—powerful much,” he admitted. “But I’m sort of taken back to see you grown up into a lady, stylish and dignified.”

      “Wouldn’t you expect that from a school teacher?”

      “I’m afraid I don’t know what to expect. But in a way, out here, your school teaching may come in handy.”

      “We have to get acquainted and find out all about each other,” she said, naïvely.

      “I should smile—and get married in the bargain, all in one day.”

      “All today?”

      “Lucinda, I’m in a hurry to go,” he replied, anxiously. “I’ve bought my outfit and we’ll leave town—soon as we get it over.”

      “Well . . . of course we must be married at once. But to rush away. . . . It isn’t far—is it—your ranch? I hope near town.”

      “Pretty far,” he rejoined. “Four days, maybe five with oxen and cattle.”

      “Is it out there—in the—the . . . ? she asked, faintly, with a slight gesture toward the range.

      “South sixty miles. Nice drive most of the way, after we leave town.”

      “Forest—like that the train came through?”

      “Most of the way. But there are lakes, sage flats, desert. Wonderful country.”

      “Logan, of course you’re located—near a town?” she faltered.

      “Flagg is the closest,” he answered, patiently, as if she were a child.

      Lucinda bit her lips to hold back an exclamation of dismay. Her strong capable hands trembled slightly as she opened her pocketbook. “Here are my checks. I brought a trunk and a chest. My hand-baggage is there.”

      “Trunk and chest! Golly, where’ll I put them? We’ll have a wagonload,” he exclaimed, and taking the checks he hailed an expressman outside the rail. He gave him instructions, pointing out the two bags on the platform, then returned to Lucinda.

      “Dear! You’re quite pale,” he said anxiously. “Tired from the long ride?”

      “I’m afraid so. But I’ll be—all right. . . . Take me somewhere.”

      “That I will. To Babbitts’, where you can buy anything from a needle to a piano. You’ll be surprised to see a bigger store than there is in Kansas City.”

      “I want to get some things I hadn’t time for.”

      “Fine. After we buy the wedding-ring. The parson told me not to forget that.”

      Lucinda kept pace with his stride up town. But on the moment she did not evince her former interest in cowboys and westerners in general, nor the huge barnlike store he dragged her into. She picked out a plain wedding-ring and left it on her finger as if she was afraid to remove it. Logan’s earnest face touched her. For his sake she fought the poignant and sickening sensations that seemed to daze her.

      “Give me an hour here—then come after me,” she said.

      “So long! Why, for goodness’ sake?”

      “I have to buy a lot of woman’s things.”

      “Lucinda, my money’s about gone,” he said, perturbed. “It just melted away. I put aside some to pay Holbert for cattle I bought at Mormon Lake.”

      “I have plenty, Logan. I saved my salary,” she returned, smilingly. But she did not mention the five hundred dollars her uncle had given her for a wedding-present. Lucinda had a premonition she would need that money.

      “Good! Lucinda, you always were a saving girl. . . . Come, let’s get married pronto. Then you come back here while I repack that wagon.” He slipped his arm under hers and hustled her along. How powerful he was and what СКАЧАТЬ