“Well, you wrote father you expected trouble––and––and you had that big, long pistol when you came in yesterday. Now you can’t deny that!”
“I’m afraid you’ve had some Western ideas implanted in your bosom by Kitty, Miss Lucy,” protested Hardy. “We never shoot each other down here. I carry that pistol for the moral effect––and it’s necessary, too, to protect these sheepmen against their own baser natures. You see they’re all armed, and if I should ride into their camp without a gun and ask them to move they might be tempted to do something overt. But as it is now, when Jeff and I 226 begin to talk reason with them they understand. No, we’re all right; it’s the sheep-herders that have all the trouble.”
“Rufus Hardy,” cried Miss Lucy indignantly, “if you mention those sheep again until you are asked about them, I’ll have you attended to. Do you realize how far I have come to see your poems and hear you talk the way you used to talk? And then to hear you go on in this way! I thought at first that Mr. Creede was a nice man, but I am beginning to change my opinion of him. But you have just got to be nice to me and Kitty while we are here. I had so many things to tell you about your father, and Tupper Browne, and The Circle, but you just sit around so kind of close-mouthed and silent and never ask a question! Wouldn’t you like to know how your father is?” she asked.
“Why, yes,” responded Hardy meekly. “Have you seen him lately?”
“I saw him just before we came away. He is dreadfully lonely, I know, but he wouldn’t send any message. He never says anything when I tell him what you are doing, just sits and twists his mustache and listens; but I could tell by the way he said good-bye that he was glad I was coming. I am sorry you can’t agree––isn’t there something you could do to make him happier?”
Hardy looked up from his dish-washing with a slow smile.
“Which do you think is more important?” he asked, “for a man to please his father or his best friend?”
Lucy suspected a trap and she made no reply.
“Did you ever quote any of my poetry to father?” inquired Hardy casually. “No? Then please don’t. But I’ll bet if you told him I was catching wild horses, or talking reason to these Mexican herders, you’d have the old man coming. He’s a fighter, my father, and if you want to make him happy when you go back, tell him his son has just about given up literature and is the champion bronco-twister of the Four Peaks range.”