"I know you, my dear, because Rhoda has told me so much about you. She has explained your character, I see, very truthfully. Your features bear out all she has said. You see, my dear, I am a witch!" and she kissed Nan warmly.
She welcomed the others with grace and that wide hospitality which is only found, perhaps, in the West and among people of the great outdoors. It arises from old times, when the wanderer, seeing a campfire, was sure of a welcome if he approached, and a welcome without questioning.
Mr. Hammond was equally glad to see the young folk. He spoke with a pleasant drawl, and aside from his gray hair and beard revealed few marks of age. His vigorous frame carried too much flesh, perhaps; but that was, he said, "because he took it easy and let the boys run things to suit themselves."
This last statement, however, Nan, who was observant, took with the proverbial pinch of salt. The expression of his countenance was kindly, but his character was firm and he spoke at times with a decision that made the servants, for instance, hurry to obey him. He was, indeed, a very forceful man; but Nan Sherwood liked him immensely.
The rambling ranch house covered a deal of ground and was two stories high. The rooms were low-ceilinged, the upper rooms especially so. The girls who had come to visit Rhoda had a big, plainly furnished, airy room on the upper floor, beside Rhoda's own chamber. Walter had his choice of a bed or a hammock in a room across the hall. The adults of the household were disposed below, while the servants occupied quarters away from the main dwelling.
There was a water system which afforded plenty of baths, the clank of the pump being heard in a steady murmur from somewhere behind the house. It was too late, when they were freshened after the ride, for any exploration outside the house on this evening. All the visitors were ready for dinner when the Mexican waiter announced it.
The servants included a Chinese cook, Mexican houseboys, and negroes for the outside work. The life at Rose Ranch was evidently a rather free and easy existence. The standards of etiquette were not just the same as at the Mason house in Chicago; but the Hammonds knew well how to make their guests feel at home. The quality of the hospitality of the ranchman and his wife was not strained.
The party lingered long at dinner, under the glow of a hanging lamp that illuminated the table but left the corners and sides of the great room in shadow. Now and then somebody would lounge in at the doorway and speak to Mr. Hammond.
"Ah say, Boss, where'd you say Dan's outfit was goin'? I plumb forgot."
"You'd forget your head, Carey, if it wasn't screwed on tight," declared the ranchman, without glancing at the big figure slouching in the doorway. "Dan and his bunch light out for Beller's Gulch come mornin'."