Part 20

"It was a terrible time. I was only a child, but I can remember how wild the men all seemed when you drove up and leaped out of the wagon. I didn't realize that my father's life depended on your coming, but we all knew it was brave of you."

"I think I was born a soldier. What I like about my present job is its definiteness. I have my written instructions, and there's no need to argue anything. I carry out my orders. But I beg pardon, I'm not going to talk 'shop' to you. I want you to tell me about yourself. I hope you are not to return to the East, for if you do not I shall be able to see you occasionally."

Here Redfield appealed to the ranger. "Ross, you're all sorts of a reactionary. What do you say to this? Senator Bridges is opposed to all Federal interference with State forests and State game."

The forester's eyes lit up. "But are they State forests and State game? What makes them so? They are lands which the whole people purchased and which the whole people defended."

"Heah! heah!" cheered Enderby.

Bridges bristled with anger, and went off into a long harangue on States rights and the dangers of centralization, to which Enderby replied: "Bosh! the whole trouble with your bally Government is its lack of cohesion. If I had my way, I'd wipe out the Senate and put a strong man like Roosevelt at the head of the executive. You're such blooming asses over here; you don't know enough to keep a really big man in your presidential chair. This fussing about every four years to put in some oily corporation lawyer is bloody rot. Here's Roosevelt gets in the midst of a lot of the finest kind of reforms, y' know, and directly you go and turn him out! Then if you get a bad man, you've to wait four years till you can fetch him a whack. Why not arrange it so you can pitch your President out the minute he goes wrong? I say your old rag of a Constitution is a ball-and-chain on your national leg. England is immeasurably better off so far as that goes."

Ross turned to Virginia, leaving the political discussion to go on over his head. "I was back in the Old Island a couple of years ago, and you've no idea how small it seemed to me. It surely is a 'right little, tight little island.' I couldn't help wondering whether the men in Parliament were as important as they seemed to think they were, and whether England is not really an empty shell of empire, a memory of what it once was. I couldn't settle down there, someway. I was homesick for the mountains in a month. But what scared me most was the pauper population of the old place--one in every thirty-seven must be helped. I came back to the States gladly. 'I guess I'm an American,' I said to my sisters."

To Lee Virginia all this talk of "the curse of democracy" and "the decay of empire" was unexciting, but when Cavanagh told of the sheepmen's advance across the dead-line on Deer Creek, and of the threats of the cattle-owners, she was better able to follow the discussion. Bridges was heartily on the side of law and order, for he wished to boom the State (being a heavy owner in a town-site), but he objected to Redfield's ideas of "bottling up the resources of the State."

"We're not," retorted Redfield; "we're merely defending them against those who would monopolize them. We believe in their fullest use, but we see no reason for giving away the resources when the country needs the revenue."

Mrs. Redfield rose as soon as the coffee came on. "You gentlemen seem bent upon discussing matters of no interest to us," she said, "so we'll leave you to fight it out alone. I'm sure you'll all agree with Hugh in the end. Like General Grant, he's a very obstinate man."

No sooner were they seated in the big living-room than Mrs. Enderby began to relate comical stories of her household. Her cats had fits and ran up the wall. Her dogs were forever getting quilled by reason of foolish attacks upon porcupines, or else they came home so reminiscent of skunks that they all but smothered the cook. "Invariably they return from encounters of this kind just as we are sitting at dinner," she explained. "Furthermore, Enderby's ditches are habitually getting clogged, and overflowing the lawn and filling the cellar, and he stands in terror of his cowboys. When I think of all these irruptions and distractions, England's order and routine seem heavenly; but Charley finds all this amusing, more's the pity, and leaves me to set things in order. Most ludicrous of all, to me, is his habitual claim that the ranch is paying. I tell him there's an error in his bookkeeping somewhere, but he assures me that his receipts exceeded his expenditures last year--which is quite too incredible. You've no idea how high wages are and how little we raise."

"Oh yes, I have," laughed Mrs. Redfield, "and my cat had a fit too. Hugh says it's the high altitude. I tell him it's melancholia."

Cavanagh showed himself. "I hear so much laughter I'm coming in, we're all so insufferably political out here. And, besides, I came to see the ladies, and I can only stay a few minutes longer."

"You're not going back to-night!" exclaimed his hostess.

"I must be on my own precinct by daylight," he replied; "the Supervisor has an eye on me."

Mrs. Redfield explained to Lee Virginia. "He rode fifty miles over the mountains--"

"Thirty," corrected Ross. "But what does that matter when I'm in the company of such charming ladies?" he added, gallantly.

"And now he's going to ride all the way back to-night!"

"Think of that," gasped Mrs. Enderby, "and no moon!"

"How can you find your way?" asked Mrs. Bridges, to whom this was a mortally dangersome journey.

"Oh, it's quite simple. If you don't bump against a tree or fall into the creek you may be quite sure you're on the trail," laughed Ross.

Mrs. Redfield knew the true reason for his coming, and was not at all pleased, "for with all Lee's personal charm," she said to her husband, "she is socially beneath Ross Cavanagh, even in a State where social barriers are few."

"Come out on the veranda," suggested Cavanagh, "and I'll show you the hills I must climb."

Lee accepted innocently; but as the young people left the room Mrs. Enderby looked at her hostess with significant glance. "There's the lady Ross rode down to meet. Who is she?"

"Her mother is that dreadful old creature that keeps the Wetherford Hotel in Roaring Fork."

"No!" exclaimed Mrs. Enderby.

"Yes; Lee Virginia is Lize Wetherford's daughter."

"But the girl is charming."