Her Prairie Knight by B. M. Bower (good summer reads TXT) 📖

“Well, Be'trice!” He gave a long gasp of ecstasy. “I don't see how can you do it? Can't I do it, Be'trice?”

“I'm afraid not, honey—you'd have to learn. There was a queer French girl at school, who could do the strangest things, Dorman—like fairy tales, almost. And she taught me to throw my voice different places, and mimic sounds, when we should have been at our lessons. Listen, hon. This is how a little lamb cries, when he is lost.... And this is what a hungry kittie says, when she is away up in a tree, and is afraid to come down.”

Dorman danced all around his divinity, and forgot about the fish—until Beatrice found it in her heart to regret her rash revelation of hitherto undreamed-of powers of entertainment.

“Not another sound, Dorman,” she declared at length, with the firmness of despair. “No, I will not be a lost lamb another once. No, nor a hungry kittie, either—nor a snake, or anything. If you are not going to fish, I shall go straight back to the house.”

Dorman sighed heavily, and permitted his divinity to fasten a small grasshopper to his hook.

“We'll go a bit farther, dear, down under those great trees. And you must not speak a word, remember, or the fish will all run away.”

When she had settled him in a likely place, and the rapt patience of the born angler had folded him close, she disposed herself comfortably in the thick grass, her back against a tree, and took up the shuttle of fancy to weave a wonderful daydream, as beautiful, intangible as the lacy, summer clouds over her head.

A man rode quietly over the grass and stopped two rods away, that he might fill his hungry eyes with the delicious loveliness of his Heart's Desire.

“Got a bite yet?”

Dorman turned and wrinkled his nose, by way of welcome, and shook his head vaguely, as though he might tell of several unimportant nibbles, if it were worth the effort.

Beatrice sat a bit straighter, and dexterously whisked some pink ruffles down over two distracting ankles, and hoped Keith had not taken notice of them. He had, though; trust a man for that!

Keith dismounted, dropped the reins to the ground, and came and laid himself down in the grass beside his Heart's Desire, and Beatrice noticed how tall he was, and slim and strong.

“How did you know we were here?” she wanted to know, with lifted eyebrows.

Keith wondered if there was a welcome behind that sweet, indifferent face. He never could be sure of anything in Beatrice's face, because it never was alike twice, it seemed to him—and if it spoke welcome for a second, the next there was only raillery, or something equally unsatisfying.

“I saw you from the trail,” he answered promptly, evidently not thinking it wise to mention the fieldglass. And then: “Is Dick at home?” Not that he wanted Dick—but a fellow, even when he is in the last stages of love, feels need of an excuse sometimes.

“No—we women are alone to-day. There isn't a man on the place, except Looey Sam, and he doesn't count.”

Dorman squirmed around till he could look at the two, and his eyebrows were tied in a knot. “I wish, Be'trice, you wouldn't talk, 'less you whisper. De fishes won't bite a bit.”

“All right, honey—we won't.”

Dorman turned back to his fishing with a long breath of relief. His divinity never broke a promise, if she could help it.

If Dorman Hayes had been Cupid himself, he could not have hit upon a more impish arrangement than that. To place a girl like Beatrice beside a fellow like Keith—a fellow who is tall, and browned, and extremely good-looking, and who has hazel eyes with a laugh in them always—a fellow, moreover, who is very much in love and very much in earnest about it—and condemn him to silence, or to whispers!

Keith took advantage of the edict, and moved closer, so that he could whisper in comfort—and be nearer his Heart's Desire. He lay with his head propped upon his hand, and his elbow digging into the sod and getting grass-stains on his shirt sleeve, for the day was too warm for a coat. Beatrice, looking down at him, observed that his forearm, between his glove and wrist-band, was as white and smooth as her own. It is characteristic of a cowboy to have a face brown as an Indian, and hands girlishly white and soft.

“I haven't had a glimpse of you for a week—not since I met you down by the river. Where have you been?” he whispered.

“Here. Rex went lame, and Dick wouldn't let me ride any other horse, since that day Goldie bolted—and so the hills have called in vain. I've stayed at home and made quantities of Duchesse lace—I almost finished a love of a center piece—and mama thinks I have reformed. But Rex is better, and tomorrow I'm going somewhere.”

“Better help me hunt some horses that have been running down Lost Canyon way. I'm going to look for them to-morrow,” Keith suggested, as calmly as was compatible with his eagerness and his method of speech. I doubt if any man can whisper things to a girl he loves, and do it calmly. I know Keith's heart was pounding.

“I shall probably ride in the opposite direction,” Beatrice told him wickedly. She wondered if he thought she would run at his beck.

“I never saw you in this dress before,” Keith murmured, his eyes caressing.

“No? You may never again,” she said. “I have so many things to wear out, you know.”

“I like it,” he declared, as emphatically as he could, and whisper. “It is just the color of your cheeks, after the wind has been kissing them a while.”

“Fancy a cowboy saying pretty things like that!”

Beatrice's cheeks did not wait for the wind to kiss them pink.

“Ya-as, only fawncy, ye knaw.” His eyes were daringly mocking.

“For shame, Mr. Cameron! Sir Redmond would not mimic your speech.”

“Good reason why; he couldn't, not if he tried a thousand years.”

Beatrice knew this was the truth, so she fell back upon dignity.

“We will not discuss that subject, I think.”

“I don't want to, anyway. I know another subject a million times more interesting than Sir Redmond.”

“Indeed!” Beatrice's eyebrows were at their highest. “And what is it, then?”

“You!” Keith caught her hand; his eyes compelled her.

“I think,” said Beatrice, drawing her hand away, “we will not discuss that subject, either.”

“Why?” Keith's eyes continued to woo.

“Because.”

It occurred to Beatrice that