The rest of the ride he insisted on playing the heavy respectful. He wasn’t to be baby-vamped into making love to any girl; to that he had made up his mind flyingly but firmly. Tempting, indeed, was she. But until he should commit himself to temptation, she should not over-tempt him. Even in this, their “day and degeneration,” he claimed the deciding vote of the male. Why not?
After that he chose the topics of conversation, favoring one introduced that day by the girl’s own mother—genealogy. Irene’s answers were considerably less animated than his questions.
Yes, “family” was the hobby-pace of her only mamma. She, herself, didn’t care a Russian kopeck from what a man came, so that he was present when she wanted him. Still, if Pape aspired to get along with parent-Helene, he’d have to trump her genealogical lead. Could he and would he produce a family escutcheon?
If there was one to be had in town! So he promised with hand-on-heart. He had been born and bred and all that, he declared. And he had reasons for wishing to be properly installed as a friend of the Sturgis family. Would an escutcheon really need to be laid within range of the maternal lorgnette? If so, just what was an escutcheon most like?
Ha, he began to see! It was, then, an authenticated something which one emblazoned on what he owned to show that he owned it, like the interrogation point which he branded on his cattle back home? He explained the significance of the name of the distant Queer Question Ranch back in Hellroaring Valley, a name derived from his own whys and why-nots. He’d see what he could do toward authenticating a creditable escutcheon and exhibiting the same to mamma.
They had curved around North Meadow, had skirted the silver circle of the receiving reservoir and were approaching The Green, before Pape’s absorption in this self-selected topic was broken. He had cast a surreptitious glance toward a clump of poplars that disputed possession of a hillock with an outcrop of granite. Beneath them he had seen what caused his heart to take one quick flop, then stand still.
What next occurred was better understood by Friend Polkadot than Friend Girl. The horse received a knee-pressed signal, the meaning of which was clear, if not the particular reason therefor. Just why Why-Not should wish to rid himself of a riding-mate he had seemed to find so delightful——
However, Dot was enough of a soldier never to argue actual orders. He promptly went lame. And he rather enjoyed doing so. The trick had been dear to him ever since the petting lavished upon him during his recovery from a real injury years ago. He slowed to a stop; up-held his fore-hoof; himself demanded “’tentions.”
“What’s matter, old hoss?”
Perfect in his part of this play to retire from trail company no longer congenial, the Westerner flung himself off-saddle, accepted and examined the pitiful “paw.” Even when the supposed victim winked and drew back his upper lip in a wide horse grin, there showed no change in the poker face of the Montana man.