Also, she had always avoided opposing him. It did not seem to be worth while. He had been left destitute, except for the little farm back near Poughkeepsie which he had sold at her request to accompany her here, and she felt that habits of thought and speech are firmly fixed at sixty-nine, and argument cannot shake them.
That first day at the ranchhouse was the beginning of a new existence for Ruth. Bound for years by the narrow restrictions and conventionality of the Poughkeepsie countryside, she found the spaciousness and newness of this life inviting and satisfying. Here there seemed to be no limit, either to the space or to the flights that one’s soul might take, and in the solemn grandeur of the open she felt the omnipotence of God and the spell of nature.
She had plenty of time after the first day to hold communion with the Creator. Masten was rarely near her. His acquaintance with Pickett and Chavis seemed destined to develop into friendship. He rode much with them—“looking over the range,” he told her—and only in the evening did he find time to devote to her.
Wes Vickers returned from Red Rock on the morning following Ruth’s arrival. Apparently, in spite of Randerson’s prediction, Vickers did not get drunk in town. Through him Ruth learned much about the Flying W. He gave her the fruit of his experience, and he had been with the Flying W as range boss for nearly five years.
Vickers was forty. His hair was gray at the temples; he was slightly stoop-shouldered from years in the saddle, and his legs were bowed from the same cause. He was the driving force of the Flying W. Ruth’s uncle had written her to that effect the year before during his illness, stating that without Vickers’ help he would be compelled to sell the ranch. The truth of this statement dawned upon Ruth very soon after her acquaintance with Vickers. He was argus-eyed, omnipresent. It seemed that he never slept. Mornings when she would arise with the dawn she would find Vickers gone to visit some distant part of the range. She was seldom awake at night when he returned.
He had said little to her regarding the men. “They ’tend to business,” was his invariable response when she sought to question him. “It’s a pretty wild life,” he told her when one day about two weeks after her coming she had pressed him; “an’ the boys just can’t help kickin’ over the traces once in a while.”
“Chavis and Pickett good men?” she asked.
“You saw anything to show you they ain’t?” he said, with a queer look at her.
“Why, no,” she returned. But her cheeks reddened.
He looked at her with a peculiar squint. “Seems like Masten runnin’ with them shows that they ain’t nothin’ wrong with them,” he said.