The Range Boss by Charles Alden Seltzer (reader novel .TXT) 📖

A quiet satisfaction shone from Ruth’s eyes when, accompanied by Aunt Martha and Uncle Jepson, she completed her inspection of the ranchhouse.

“It isn’t all that could be desired,” she told Aunt Martha, “but it is better than I expected.”

“It’s comfortable, dearie,” mildly smiled Aunt Martha.

“An’ big enough for a feller to stretch his legs in,” added Uncle Jepson. He was sitting in a big chair at one of the front windows of the sitting-room, having already adjusted himself to his new surroundings, and was smoking a short briar pipe and looking out of the window at the bunkhouse, in front of which stood Pickett, Chavis, and Masten, talking and laughing.

While Ruth and her relatives had been inspecting one of the upstairs rooms, she had heard the men bringing the baggage in, had heard them clumping up the stairs and setting the trunks down. Then they went out, and a little later, peering from one of the windows upstairs, Ruth had seen Masten and the other two walking toward the stable. They were talking pleasantly; their liking for each other seemed to be mutual. Ruth was delighted, but Uncle Jepson had frowned several times when looking at them.

“I cal’late them two critters’ll bear a heap of watchin’,” he said now. “They don’t look honest.”

“Jep,” said Aunt Martha before Ruth could speak, “you’re always criticising folks.”

“It’s in their faces drat ’em,” insisted Uncle Jepson. He turned a vindictive eye on his niece. “If I’d have been fifty year younger I’d have give that Chavis a durn good thrashin’ for sayin’ what he did to you about pretty gals. Durn his hide, anyhow! That there Wil—”

“I felt that way myself, at first,” smiled Ruth. “Afterwards, though, I felt differently. I suppose they were glad to see the new owner. Perhaps they haven’t seen a lady in a long time.”

“There’s ways of showin’ gladness,” contended Uncle Jepson. “I cal’late if I wanted to compliment a girl, I wouldn’t look at her like I wanted to carry her off to the mountains.”

“Jep, they’re only cowboys—they don’t know any different,” remonstrated Aunt Martha.

“They don’t, eh?” sniffed Uncle Jepson. “I cal’late that feller, Rex Randerson, is some different, ain’t he? There’s a gentleman, Ruth. You didn’t see him makin’ no ox-eyes. An’ I’ll bet you wouldn’t ketch him gettin’ thick with them two plug-uglies out there!”

Ruth turned away, smiling tolerantly, after having caught a glimpse of Aunt Martha’s brows, uplifted in resignation. She was as fully aware of Uncle Jepson’s dislike of Willard Masten as she was of Uncle Jepson’s testiness and of his habit of speaking his thoughts without reservation.

Also, she had always avoided opposing him. It did not seem to be worth while. He had been left destitute, except for the little farm back near Poughkeepsie which he had sold at her request to accompany her here, and she felt that habits of thought and speech are firmly fixed at sixty-nine, and argument cannot shake them.

That first day at the ranchhouse was the beginning of a new existence for Ruth. Bound for years by the narrow restrictions and conventionality of the Poughkeepsie countryside, she found the spaciousness and newness of this life inviting and satisfying. Here there seemed to be no limit, either to the space or to the flights that one’s soul might take, and in the solemn grandeur of the open she felt the omnipotence of God and the spell of nature.

She had plenty of time after the first day to hold communion with the Creator. Masten was rarely near her. His acquaintance with Pickett and Chavis seemed destined to develop into friendship. He rode much with them—“looking over the range,” he told her—and only in the evening did he find time to devote to her.

Wes Vickers returned from Red Rock on the morning following Ruth’s arrival. Apparently, in spite of Randerson’s prediction, Vickers did not get drunk in town. Through him Ruth learned much about the Flying W. He gave her the fruit of his experience, and he had been with the Flying W as range boss for nearly five years.

Vickers was forty. His hair was gray at the temples; he was slightly stoop-shouldered from years in the saddle, and his legs were bowed from the same cause. He was the driving force of the Flying W. Ruth’s uncle had written her to that effect the year before during his illness, stating that without Vickers’ help he would be compelled to sell the ranch. The truth of this statement dawned upon Ruth very soon after her acquaintance with Vickers. He was argus-eyed, omnipresent. It seemed that he never slept. Mornings when she would arise with the dawn she would find Vickers gone to visit some distant part of the range. She was seldom awake at night when he returned.

He had said little to her regarding the men. “They ’tend to business,” was his invariable response when she sought to question him. “It’s a pretty wild life,” he told her when one day about two weeks after her coming she had pressed him; “an’ the boys just can’t help kickin’ over the traces once in a while.”

“Chavis and Pickett good men?” she asked.

“You saw anything to show you they ain’t?” he said, with a queer look at her.

“Why, no,” she returned. But her cheeks reddened.

He looked at her with a peculiar squint. “Seems like Masten runnin’ with them shows that they ain’t nothin’ wrong with them,” he said.

She had no reply to make to this, but she was vaguely disturbed over the expression in Vickers’ eyes; that look seemed to indicate that her own first impression of the two men, and Uncle Jepson’s later condemnation of them, might be correct. However, they did not bother her, and she felt certain that Masten could care for himself.

With Masten absent with Chavis and Pickett nearly every day, Ruth had much time to herself. The river attracted her, and she rode to it many times, on a slant-eyed pony that Vickers had selected for her, and which had been gentled by a young cowpuncher brought in from an outlying camp solely for that purpose by the range boss. The young puncher had been reluctant to come, and he was equally reluctant to go.

“This here cayuse,” he said to Vickers, when the latter instructed him to return to his outfit, saying that Miss Ruth thought she could now ride the pony without trouble, “is got a heap of devilment in him, yet—which ought to come out.”

“Miss Ruth’s got a fellow,” said the range boss, in seeming irrelevance. But the young puncher sneered a malignant denial and rode away to his camp.

There were fourteen other men employed by the Flying W. Ruth met them at various times. Invariably they were looking for strays. They seemed—some of them—content to look at her; others, bolder, manufactured ingenuous pretexts to talk; but—all were gentlemen.

She arose one morning during the third week of her stay at the ranch, to be greeted by one of those perfect days that late spring brings. It had been dry for a week, with a hint of receding chill in the air, and the comfort of a wrap was still felt. But on this