The Range Boss

by Charles Alden Seltzer

But he had not yet finished. “Why, I reckon—” he began. And then he saw Ruth, and his lips wreathed in a delighted grin. “You’re the fairy, ma’am.” And then he sobered. “Shucks. I’m talkin’ nonsense, ma’am. I’ve come to tell you that the grass ain’t what it ought to be where we’ve been, an’ tomorrow we’re drivin’ past here to go down the river.” He was still holding Hagar’s hands, and now he seemed to realize that perhaps he had been too effusive, and he flushed and dropped them. “You was just goin’, I reckon,” he said to the girl. And at her nod, and a quick, pleased glance from her eyes, he added: “Tell your dad that I’m comin’ over to see him, pretty soon. I’d have been over before, but I’ve been sort of busy.”

“We’ve been a-hopin’ you’d come,” answered Hagar. And with another smile at Ruth she stepped off the porch and mounted her pony.

Randerson went directly to his room, and Ruth stood for a long time at the door, watching Hagar as she rode her pony over the plains. There was a queer sensation of resentment in her breast over this exhibition of friendship; she had never thought of them knowing each other. She smiled after a while, however, telling herself that it was nothing to her. But the next time that she saw Hagar she ascertained her age. It was seventeen.

The outfit came in the next morning—fourteen punchers, the horse-wrangler having trouble as usual with the remuda, the cook, Chavis, and Pickett. They veered the herd toward the river and drove it past the ranchhouse and into a grass level that stretched for miles. It was near noon when the chuck wagon came to a halt near the bunkhouse door, and from the porch of her house Ruth witnessed a scene that she had been anticipating since her first day in the West—a group of cowboys at play.

Did these men of the plains know that their new boss had been wanting to see them in their unrestrained moments? They acted like boys—more mischievous than boys in their most frolicsome moods. Their movements were grotesque, their gestures extravagant, their talk high-pitched and flavored with a dialect that Ruth had never heard. They were “showing off”; the girl knew that. But she also knew that in their actions was much of earnestness, that an excess of vigor filled them. They were like their horses which now unleashed in the corral were running, neighing, kicking up their heels in their momentary delight of freedom.

The girl understood and sympathized with them, but she caught a glimpse of Chavis and Pickett, sitting close together on a bench at the front of the messhouse, talking seriously, and a cloud came over her face. These two men were not light-hearted as the others. What was the reason? When she went into the house a few minutes later, a premonition of impending trouble assailed her and would not be dismissed.

She helped Aunt Martha in the kitchen. Uncle Jepson had gone away—“nosin’ around,” he had said; Masten had ridden away toward the river some time before—he had seemed to ride toward the break in the canyon which led to the Catherson cabin; she did not know where Randerson had gone—had not seen him for hours.

Hilarious laughter reached her, busy in the kitchen, but it did not banish the peculiar uneasiness that afflicted her. And some time later, when the laughter ceased and she went to the window and looked out, the cowboys had vanished. They had gone in to dinner. But Chavis and Pickett still sat on their bench, talking. Ruth shivered and turned from the window.

She was in better spirits shortly after dinner, and went out to the stable to look at her pony. Because of the coming of the remuda she had thought it best to take her pony from the corral, for she feared that in company with the other horses her own animal would return to those ungentle habits which she disliked.

She fed it from some grain in a bin, carried some water in a pail from the trough at the windmill, and stood at the pony’s head for some time, watching it. Just as she was about to turn to leave the stable, she felt the interior darken, and she wheeled quickly to see that the door had closed, and that Jim Pickett stood before it, grinning at her.