Sam also had brought a bashfully presented offering, the pelt of a mountain lion which now served as Aunt Anna’s bedside rug. Nancy had put up white blue-bordered curtains at the little square windows and had set on the wide sills pots of red berries, boxes of ferns, and bowls of bright-faced pansies.
With the fresh wind fluttering the curtains and the sunshine lying in patches on the white scrubbed floor, the little cabin was as gay and homelike a place as heart could desire.
Christina, in spite of Thorvik’s interdiction, still came every day. This morning she arrived earlier than usual, with their marketing in a big basket and the mail; for it was not, even yet, a good thing for the girls to go often to the village. She took some letters in to their Aunt Anna and remained for some time, since Aunt Anna appeared to be asking her questions.
“No,” the girls heard Christina say, through the door, “there is no one of your name hereabouts. But Olaf and I have only lived in this valley ten years, so it might have been before.”
Beatrice looked up, startled. What had her aunt been asking and why should there be any one of their name living in this far-off place? She remembered her former wonder concerning that brother of whom they never heard anything at home. But Christina came out and closed the door, the bright morning was calling, and Beatrice forgot her curiosity in looking forward to her ride.
“Don’t you want to go, Nancy?” she said as she went through the kitchen.
“No,” returned Nancy briskly, “I don’t care for riding as you do, and this morning I would not go for anything. Christina is going to teach me how to make bread.” The exploration of strange forests and dizzy mountainsides was nothing to Nancy, compared with the excitement of cooking something new.
To saddle Buck was now a less difficult affair than at first, for his mistress had learned to fling the object of his hatred upon him and then stand back, giving adroit jerks at the cinch between his kicks and plunges. When he had got his fill of bucking he would turn his white face to her as if to say, “That is all for to-day; now let’s be off.”
Her expedition was doomed to delay, however, for, as she was leading her pony around the corner of the house, she came upon a visitor, a total stranger, standing on the doorstep. He was apparently annoyed at finding no doorbell and having his knock go unheard. He shuffled his feet, coughed, and rapped smartly on the door again and again, as though he were a person of such importance that he could not afford to be kept waiting. Beatrice realized suddenly how used she had become to Ely’s conventional costume of flannel shirt and high boots, since this dapper newcomer, with his pointed shoes and tight, high-waisted coat looked not only uncomfortable, but absurd.
“Good morning, Miss Deems. Beautiful day, is it not?” began the stranger easily. “Mills is my name, Dabney Mills of the Brownsville, Montana ‘Evening Star.’ My paper has sent me here, or rather I volunteered to come, to investigate this unfortunate affair going on in Broken Bow Valley.”