Lonesome Land by B. M. Bower (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

“I think he's coming now,” Manley said rather stiffly. “Of course, I don't ask you to like him; but he's putting himself to a good deal of trouble for us, and—”

“Wasted effort, so far as I am concerned,” Valeria put in, with a chirpy accent which was exasperating, even to a bridegroom very much in love with his bride.

In the darkness that muffled the land, save where the yellow flare of lamps in the little town made a misty brightness, came the click of shod hoofs. Another moment and a man, mounted upon a white horse, loomed indistinct before them, seeming to take substance from the night. Behind him trailed another horse, and for the first time in her life Valeria heard the soft, whispering creak of saddle leather, the faint clank of spur chains, and the whir of a horse mouthing the “cricket” in his bit. Even in her anger, she was conscious of an answering tingle of blood, because this was life in the raw—life such as she had dreamed of in the tight swaddlings of a smug civilization, and had longed for intensely.

Kent swung down close beside them, his form indistinct but purposeful. “I'm late, I guess,” he remarked, turning to Fleetwood. “Fred got next, somehow, and—I was detained.”

“Where is he?” asked Manley, going up and laying a questioning hand upon the horse, by that means fully recognizing it as Kent's own.

“In the oats box,” said Kent laconically. He turned to the girl. “I couldn't get the sidesaddle,” he explained apologetically. “I looked where Mrs. Hawley said it was, but I couldn't find it—and I didn't have much time. You'll have to ride a stock saddle.”

Valeria drew back a step. “You mean—a man's saddle?” Her voice was carefully polite.

“Why, yes.” And he added: “The horse is dead gentle—and a sidesaddle's no good, anyhow. You'll like this better.” He spoke, as was evident, purely from a man's viewpoint.

That viewpoint Mrs. Fleetwood refused to share. “Oh, I couldn't ride a man's saddle,” she protested, still politely, and one could imagine how her lips were pursed. “Indeed, I'm not sure that I care to leave town at all.” To her the declaration did not seem unreasonable or abrupt but she felt that Kent was very much shocked. She saw him turn his head and look back toward the town, as if he half expected a pursuit.

“I don't reckon the oats box will hold Fred very long,” he observed meditatively. He added reminiscently to Manley: “I had a deuce of a time getting the cover down and fastened.”

“I'm very sorry,” said Valeria, with sweet dignity, “that you gave yourself so much trouble—”

“I'm kinda sorry myself,” Kent agreed mildly, and Valeria blushed hotly, and was glad he could not see.

“Come, Val—you can ride this saddle, all right. All the girls out here—”

“I did not come West to imitate all the girls. Indeed, I could never think of such a thing. I couldn't possibly—really, Manley! And, you know, it does seem so childish of us to run away—”

Kent moved restlessly, and felt to see if the cinch was tight.

Fleetwood took her coaxingly by the arm. “Come, sweetheart, don't be stubborn. You know—”

“Well, really! If it's a question of obstinacy—You see, I look at the matter in this way: You believe that you are doing what is best for my sake; I don't agree with you—and it does seem as if I should be permitted to judge what I desire.” Then her dignity and her sweet calm went down before a flash of real, unpolished temper. “You two can take those nasty horses and ride clear to Dakota, if you want to. I'm going back to the hotel. And I'm going to tell somebody to let that poor fellow out of that box. I think you're acting perfectly horrid, both of you, when I don't want to go!” She actually started back toward the scattered points of light.

She did not, however, get so faraway that she failed to hear Kent's “Well, I'll be damned!” uttered in a tone of intense disgust.

“I don't care,” she assured herself, because of the thrill of compunction caused by that one forcible sentence. She had never before in her life heard a man really swear. It affected her very much as would the accidental touch of an electric battery. She walked on slowly, stumbling a little and trying to hear what it was they were saying.

Then Kent passed her, loping back to the town, the led horse shaking his saddle so that it rattled the stirrups like castanets as he galloped. “I don't care,” she told herself again very emphatically, because she was quite sure that she did care—or that she would care if only she permitted herself to be so foolish. Manley overtook her then, and drew her hand under his arm to lead her. But he seemed quite sullen, and would not say a word all the way back.