“I’m sorry you had an accident, and I suppose you will have to send the broken part to Sebastian. May I go with the team?”
“Why, of course,” he said. “I’ll drive you in to-morrow. As it’s a pretty long way, I’ll try to borrow a comfortable rig.”
He went on with the horses and she saw no more of him that day, but early the next morning he brought up a light, four-wheeled vehicle, which would carry two people and had a hood that could be drawn up. Gertrude thought it a great improvement on the prairie wagon, and she admired the restive team which he had some trouble in holding. When she got in, he sprang to the seat beside her, the horses bounded forward, and they sped out through a gap in the fence, the vehicle lurching wildly among the ruts.
For a while Gertrude was occupied, to the exclusion of everything else, in trying to keep her place, but when Prescott turned the team on to a stretch of smooth short grass she began to look about. It was a clear, cool morning, the sky was a wonderful blue, and bluffs miles away showed up with sharp distinctness. In the foreground the gray grass was bathed in a soft light which was restful to the eyes. Then Gertrude examined the rig, as the man had called it, which struck her as remarkably light and fragile; and the same thing was noticeable about the harness. The horses moved as if they were drawing no load, swinging along at a fast and springy trot, while the vehicle ran lightly up and down the slight undulations, the wheels jarring now and then into a hollow or smashing through dwarf scrub. The pace was exhilarating, the fine air invigorated the girl, and her usual prim reserve melted away.
“I am fortunate in getting in to Sebastian,” she said. “There’s a cablegram it’s necessary that my father should send.”
“Glad to take you,” Prescott rejoined. “Is Mr. Jernyngham in business?”
“Oh, no; not as you would understand it. We spend most of our time in the country, where he manages the estate. It’s small, but there are two quarries which need looking after. Then he’s director of a company. He doesn’t believe that a man should be idle.”
Prescott smiled. He had read a good deal about England, and he could imagine Jernyngham’s firm control of his property. His rule would, no doubt, be just, but it would be enforced on autocratic and highly conventional lines. His daughter, the rancher thought, resembled him in some respects. She was handsome and dignified in a colorless way; she might have been charming if she were only a trifle less correct in manner and there were more life in her.
“Well,” he said, in answer to her last remark, “that’s a notion you’ll find lived up to here. The man who won’t work mighty hard very soon goes broke. It’s a truth you in the old country ought to impress on the men you’re sending out to us.”
She liked his easy phraseology; which she supposed was western, and there was nothing harsh in his intonation. It was that of a well-educated man, and the Jernynghams were exacting in such matters.