His Royal Nibs

by Onoto Watanna

CHAPTER VIII

Sitting in the sunlight on the wide steps of the ranch house, chin cupped in her hands, her glance far off across the mountain tops, her thoughts wandering over the seas that stretched between the Dominion of Canada and the Mother-land, Hilda McPherson came out of her deep reverie to find the object of her thoughts standing before her. He had a book in his hand and with the sunny, engaging almost boyish smile that was characteristic of him he was tendering it to the girl on the steps.

For some days Cheerio’s discourse on mastodons, dinosaurs and the various species of the prehistoric days had been extremely vague and unsatisfactory to his disciple. Matters reached a climax upon this especial Sunday, when he had wandered from the matter of a fossil skeleton recently discovered on the Red Deer River, said to be one hundred and sixty feet long and at least seventy feet tall, with a sudden question that brought a snort of disgust from the intensely-interested Sandy.

“What’s she got to do with the Mezzozoic age?” he exploded.

(Note: Cheerio had digressed from the absorbing matter of the age of the Red Deer dinosaurs, to ask suddenly whether Hilda was likely to be riding with a certain bachelor rancher whose bronco was tied to the front of the ranch house when the reluctant Cheerio and Sandy had ridden away that morning.)

“I s-s-suppose,” stuttered Cheerio, “that your s-s-sister w-w-will probably be riding with her caller at the r-r-ranch.”

Sandy’s reply was neither enlightening nor respectful. He glimpsed his friend with the shrewd unflattering scrutiny of a wise one, and presently:

“Say, you don’t mean to tell me that you’re gettin’ stuck on her too!”

That was a disturbing question, and moreover a revealing one. It plainly disclosed to the upset Cheerio that there were others “stuck on” Hilda. In fact, Sandy left no room for doubt as to that.

“Holy Hens!” went on Hilda’s brother. “Half the guys in this country’s got a case on her! I don’t know what they see in her. Should think you’d have more common sense than to pile along in too.”

“Hilda’s eyes,” said the Englishman softly, “are as b-brown as loamy soil. They’re like the dark earth, warm and rich and full of promise.”

“Oh, my God—frey!” groaned Sandy and rolled clear down the grassy slope on which they had been sitting to the more intelligent and sane company of Viper, a yellow and unlovely cur who was, however, the private and personal property of Sandy. Viper was at that moment “snooping” above a gopher hole. One intelligent eye and ear cocked up warily, signalled with canine telepathy to his master and pal the warning:

“Careful! She’s under there! Don’t let on you and me are above her. I’ll get her for you. You’ll have another tail for your collection. Don’t forget there’s a gymkhana over at the Minnehaha ranch next month and the prize for the most gopher tails is five plunks.”

To this unspoken but perfectly comprehensible message, Sandy replied:

“Betchu we get his tail, Viper! Betchu I take the prize this year! I got seventy-five now. Make it seventy-six, Viper, and I’ll give you eight bones for dinner to-night.”

Cheerio, meanwhile, ruminating painfully upon Sandy’s revelation, and also upon that bronco tied to front of the ranch house, and its good-looking owner who was inside, unable to endure the picture his mind conjured of Hilda riding off with her caller into their own (his and Hilda’s) especial sun glow, jumped in a hurry upon Jim Crow’s back, and with the best of intentions sped back to O Bar O.

It was Sunday afternoon, and such of the ranch hands as were not off on some courting or hunting or fishing or riding expedition, were stretched out on the various cots that lined the long bunkhouse taking their weekly siesta. Cheerio himself was accustomed to spend his Sundays in his cave studio, but in these latter days—since in fact Hilda had ceased to ride with them in the evenings—even the painting had lost its charm for him. He spent his Sundays in the near vicinity of the ranch house, his hopeful eyes pinned upon that wide verandah on to which the girl now so seldom came.

Occasionally, as on this Sunday, Sandy would induce him into short excursions from the ranch, but Cheerio was restless and unsettled now, and far from being the satisfactory companion and oracle upon whom Sandy had depended.

Now as Cheerio paused at the bunkhouse, he turned over in his mind such small treasures as he possessed. He had a most ardent desire to endow Hilda with one or all of his possessions. He was obsessed with a longing to lay his hands upon certain treasures of a great house that should have been his own. His possessions at the ranch were modest enough. His wages had been spent mainly for paint and books. He surveyed the crude, but adequate, book-case he had built himself, and scanned the volumes laid upon the shelves. After all, one could offer no finer gift than a book. He chose carefully, with a thought rather for what might appeal especially to a girl of Hilda’s type than his own preferences.

As he came around the side of the house, he perceived that the bronco was gone. A momentary heartshake over the thought that Hilda might have gone with it, and then a great thumping of that sensitive organ as he saw the girl upon the steps. She was sitting in the sunlight, staring out before her in a day dream. Something in the mute droop of the expressive young mouth and the slight shadow cast by the lashes against her cheek gave Hilda a look of singular sadness and depression and sent her caller impetuously hurrying toward her. He had come, in fact, directly in front of her, before the eyes were lifted and Hilda looked back at him. Slowly the colour swept like the dawn over her young face, as he extended the book, stammering and blushing in his boyish way.

“M-m-m-miss Hilda, I r-r-recommend this f-for b-b-both pleasure and information. It’s p-p-part of one’s education to read Dumas.”

Education! The word was inflammatory. It was an affront to her pride. He was rubbing in the fact of her appalling ignorance. That was her own affair—her own misfortune. Hilda sprang to her feet, up in arms, on the defensive and the offensive. While the astonished Cheerio still extended the book—a silent peace offering—Hilda’s dark head tossed up, in that characteristic motion, while her foot stamped the ground.

“I don’t care for that kind of rot, thank you. My dad’s right. It’s better to be real people in the world rather than fake folk in a book.”

Again the head toss and the blaze of angry wide eyes; then, swift as a fawn, Hilda sped across the verandah and the ranch house door banged hard.

Thus might have ended the Dumas incident, but on the following day, when the men were all out on the range, she who had spurned “The Three Musketeers” slipped out of the ranch house, over to the grove of trees to the east and running behind the shelter of these, so that Chum Lee should not see her as she passed, made her way swiftly to the bunkhouse.

Bunkhouses in a ranching country are not savoury or attractive places as a general rule. This of the O Bar O was “not too bad” as the expression goes in Alberta. It had the virtue at all events of being clean, thanks to the assiduous care of Chum Lee. Moreover, shiftless and dirty fellows found a short job at O Bar O. Hats and caps, hide shirts, buckskin breeks, chaps and coats were all, therefore, neatly hung along the wall on the row of deer horns, while under these were piled on the long shelf the puttees, boots and other gear of the riders.

The bunkhouse was lavishly decorated, the entire walls being covered with pictures cut from magazines or newspapers or from other sources and pasted or tacked upon the wall. Ladies in skin tights of rounded and ample curves, in poses calculated to attract the attention of the opposite sex, ravishing beauties, all more or less with that stage smile in which all of the dental equipment of their owners, alluringly displayed, beamed down above the beds of the riders of O Bar O. Hilda had seen these often before and they had no especial interest for her. Her glance travelled instead to the long table on which was piled the treasured possessions of the men, correspondence boxes, tobacco, pipes, jack-knives, quirts, gloves, letters and photographs of friends and relatives. Nothing on that table would likely belong to him. Nothing suggested Cheerio. Her eye went slowly down the row of beds till it came to rest upon that one pulled out from the wall till the head was thrust directly under the widely opened window, by the side of which stood the crude book-case and stand. She paused only a moment and then swiftly crossed to the Englishman’s bed.

Three of the shelves were filled tightly with books and the bottom one held a writing folio and sketch tablet. This Hilda seized upon, but stopped before opening it, while the colour receded from her cheeks. Within that folio, perhaps, would be found some clue, some letter from the woman he loved. Yes, Hilda faced the fact that Cheerio loved the woman whose pictured face was in the locket, and for whom he had come to Canada to make a home. As she held the folio in her hand, she felt a passionate impulse of shame that fought her natural curiosity, and caused her to put the thing back upon the shelf. No! She had not come to the bunkhouse to spy into a man’s correspondence. It was only that she suffered from an unconquerable hunger merely again to see the other woman’s face; to study it, to compare it with her own—Oh! to destroy it! But no, no—she would not stoop so low as to look at something which he did not wish her to see.

The book was a different matter. He had offered it to her. It was therefore really her own. Thus argued Hilda within herself. A quick search along the shelves and she had picked out the volume she sought. It was marked number one in the row of books by Alexandre Dumas. Thrusting it under her cape, Hilda hurried to the door, and once again like a scared child who has been stealing apples, she slipped behind the sheltering bushes, came from behind them into the open and sped across the yard to the house.

All of that morning, Hilda McPherson was dead to the world. Lying on the great fragrant heap in the hay loft, she lost herself in the meshes of one of the most entrancing romances that has ever been penned by the hand of man. She emerged from her retreat at the dinner hour, brought back to earth by the arrival of the “hands” in the barn below. It was haying time and the men came in from the fields for their noon meal. Certain of the horses were changed and relieved and brought to the stables for especial feeding. Hiding her precious book under a pile of hay in a corner of the loft, Hilda descended, and still under the spell of the book she had been reading all morning, made her way to the house.

It so happened, that in her absorption, she had paid little attention to Sandy’s dog, who leaped up at her as she passed, capered around her, sought to lick her hands and otherwise ingratiate himself. Absently Hilda ordered him down.

“That will do, Viper! Now cut it out! Get away! Get away! Shoooo-o-o! Bad dog! Down!”

Duly admonished, spirits but slightly dampened, Viper repaired to the barn, where for a spell, with his tongue hanging out and panting from recent long runs across the land after his master on horse, he endeavoured to attract the attention of such hands as were still in the barn by an occasional yelp and a moan of protest when at last the doors were shut upon him.

For a little while Viper rested in one of the stalls; then being young and of an active disposition he arose and stretched himself and looked about him for diversion. In the natural course of events, having tired of chasing the various hens from the stalls and vainly snapping at persistent fleas, he sniffed along the trail over which his young mistress (he regarded her as such) had passed. In due time, therefore, Viper arrived in the loft. Also in the natural course of events, he nosed around and dug under the hay, disclosing the hidden book. He carried this treasure below in his mouth, and was having quite a jolly time with it, growling and barking and shaking it and alternatively letting it go and then pouncing upon it, when he was interrupted by a well-known and much-beloved and sometimes feared whistle. Joyously, proudly, triumphantly Viper brought his find to his master, and with the pride of a new mother, laid it at Sandy’s feet. Wagging his tail furiously and emitting short, sharp yelps which spoke as eloquently as mere words the dog’s demand for well-earned praise, he was rewarded from various pockets of Sandy’s overalls. The prizes consisted of bones and other edibles “swiped” from the kitchen through which Sandy had passed like a streak en route to join his dog in the barn.

Sandy now squinted appraisingly over the printed lines of that now ragged volume. Presently his attention was drawn to one living line that flashed from the page with the swift play of the sword of D’Artagnan. Sandy’s mouth gaped, and his gaze grew intent. Presently, still reading, he retired from the barn, and, followed by Viper, climbed aboard a huge hay wagon that stood beneath the open window of the big loft.

All of that afternoon Hilda McPherson searched in vain for “The Three Musketeers.” The mystery of its disappearance from the loft tormented her, for she had reached a portion of the tale that had to be finished. What had become of Porthos when—Hilda felt that she had to know the sequel of that especial episode “or bust” with unsatisfied curiosity. The story had seized upon her imagination.

The blazing sunlight of the July afternoon was softening and the mellow tone that would presently settle into the misty gleam of the reluctantly-ending day was beginning to tint the land, when Hilda looked forth from the hay loft window and perceived something directly below her that was brick red in colour. It stuck out from a loaded hay wagon. His dog curled beside him, half buried in the deep hay, book propped before him, Sandy, as his sister had done, had dropped out of this world of ours and was soaring into realms of another time.

Hilda’s eyes widened with amazement and righteous indignation. A moment of pause only, poised on the window sill of the loft. Then down she dropped squarely into the lap of the great hay wagon. There was the smothered sound of murmuring and scrambling under the hay; the delighted bark of the entertained dog, uncertain whether this was a contest or a game, and then two heads, plentifully besprinkled with straw and hay arose to the surface and two wrathful, angry faces glared across at each other.

“That’s mine!”

“It ain’t!”

“It is, I say. I had it first.”

“Don’t care if you did. Viper found it.”

“That cur stole it. I hid it in the loft. You give it up to me, do you hear me?”

“Yeeh, don’t you see me givin’ it up. My dog found it for me, and finding’s keepings, see?”

“Sandy, you give me that book, or you’ll be sorry. It’s mine.”

“Prove it then.”

A tussle, a tug, a tremendous pull; back and forth, a fierce wrestle; a scramble and sprawl over the hay; a whoop of triumph from Hilda as on the edge of the wagon, with Sandy temporarily restrained by the hay under which she had buried him, she paused a second ere she dropped to the ground almost into the arms of the highly-edified Cheerio.

Sandy at last freed from his prison of hay was upon her tracks, and with a blood-curdling yell of vengeance he leaped to the ground beside her.

“You gimme that book!”

At the sight of Cheerio, Hilda’s clasp of the book had relaxed and it was therefore a cinch for the attacking Sandy to seize and regain possession of the disputed treasure. From the boy to the girl the quizzical glance of the Englishman turned.

“I s-say, old man, b-believe that’s m-my book, d’you know.”

“Then she mus’ve swiped it, ’cause Viper found it in the hay loft and that’s where she always hides to read, so Dad won’t ketch her.”

Hilda had turned first white and then rosily red. She felt that her face was scorching and smarting tears bit at her eyelids waiting to drop. One indeed did roll down the round sun-burnt cheek and splashed visibly upon her hand right before the now thoroughly concerned Cheerio. His face stiffened sternly as he looked at Sandy, and reaching over he recovered his book. Quietly he extended it to Hilda. Sandy thereupon pressed his claim in loud and emphatic language.

“That ain’t fair. She’s just turnin’ on her old water-works so’s to make you give her the book. It ain’t fair. I’m just up to that part where Porthos and——”

Hilda made no motion to take the book. Two more tears rolled to join their first companion. Hilda could no more have stayed the course of those flowing tears than she could have dammed up the ocean with her little hand. She was forced to stand there, openly crying, before the man she had so often assured herself that she hated. Far from “gloating over” her humiliation as she imagined he was doing, Cheerio, as he looked at the weeping girl, was himself consumed with the most tender of emotions. He longed to take her into his arms and to comfort and reassure her.

“Tell you what I’ll do,” said Cheerio, gently. “I’ll read the story to you both. What do you say? An hour or two every evening while the light lasts. Wh-when we’re through with this one, w-we’ll tackle others. There’s three sequels to this, and we’ll read them all. Then we’ll go at the ‘Count of Monte Christo.’ Th-that’s a remarkable yarn!”

“Three sequels! My aunt’s old hat!” yelled the delighted Sandy, tossing his ragged head gear into the air. “Gee whillikins!”

But Cheerio was looking at Hilda, intently, appealingly. Her face had lighted, and a strange shyness seemed to come over it, reluctantly, sweetly. The long lashes quivered. She looked into the beaming face bent eagerly toward her own, and for the first time since they had met, right through her tears that still persisted strangely enough in dropping, she smiled at Cheerio.