The Fighting Shepherdess - Page 112/231

"Much obliged to meet you, ladies," deferentially. Then to Disston, darkly: "I'll take that from you onct, or twict, maybe,--but if you call me Clarence three times I'll cut your heart out."

Disston grinned understandingly.

Toomey was among those who went to the Prouty House to look at the "bunch of millionaires" waiting on the veranda, and his surprise equalled Teeters' at seeing Disston.

"Say, Hughie--I got a deal on that's a pippin--a pippin. There isn't a flaw in it!" said Toomey confidentially.

"Glad to hear it, Jap," Disston replied cordially, and presented him to Mrs. Rathburn and her daughter.

The mother was a small woman of much distinction of appearance. A well-poised manner, together with snow-white hair worn in a smooth moderate roll away from her face, and very black eyes that had a rather hard brilliancy, made her a person to be noticed. Having engineered her own life successfully, her sole interest now lay in engineering that of her daughter.

The last place Mrs. Rathburn would have selected to spend a summer was an isolated ranch in the sagebrush, but propinquity, she knew, had done wonders in friendships that had seemed hopelessly platonic, so, when Hugh urged them to join him, and endeavored to impart some of his own enthusiasm for the country, she assented.

In another way the daughter was not less noticeable than the mother, though more typically southern, with her soft drawl and appealing manner. Her skin had been so carefully protected since infancy that it was of a dazzling whiteness that might never have known the sunshine. Her feet were conspicuously small, her hands white, perfectly kept and helpless. Nature had given her the bronze hair that dyers strive for, and her brown eyes corresponded. She was as unlike the other alert self-sufficient young persons of the "millionaire bunch"--who were either dressed for utilitarian purposes only, or in finery of a past mode as could well be imagined.

Miss Rathburn had managed to remain immaculate, while their faces were smudged and streaked with soot and car dust, their hats awry and hair dishevelled. Cool, serene, with a filmy veil thrown back from her hat brim, she rocked idly, utterly unconscious of the eyes of the populace.

"The scenery is grand--Wagnerian! Out here one forgets one's ego, doesn't one?" the lady in the Alpine hat was saying when, leading the party like a bewhiskered gander, the gentleman from Canton, Ohio, dashed to the end of the veranda with his camera ready for action.

"What a picturesque character!" she cried ecstatically, following. "And see how beau-tee-fully she manages those horses!"

The cameras clicked as a young woman sitting very erect on the high spring seat of a wagon and looking straight ahead of her came past the hotel at a brisk trot, holding the reins over four spirited horses.