Rimrock Trail

by J. Allan Dunn

Miranda's caravan started an hour later, she driving, Mormon and Sam in the back, each dressed in his best, minus chaparejos and spurs, but otherwise most typically the cowboy and therefore out of place—and feeling it—as they sat stiffly in the leatherette-lined tonneau. Miranda was in starched linen, destitute of all ornament, a dark red ribbon at her throat the only touch of color, looking extremely efficient and, as Sam whispered to Mormon, "a bit stand-offish." He wanted to add, "'count of the Nicholson party," but dared not.

The train rolled in majestically, the private car gleaming with varnish and polished glass and brass, with a white-coated darky flashing white teeth on the platform as the fussy local engine took the detached luxury to the side-track designated for its Hereford location. There, forewarned by the agent, much of Hereford assembled to witness the arrival of the magnate who had helped to place them more definitely on the map and increased their revenues as supply depot for Casey Town. The flivver was parked and Miranda, Mormon and Sam made one group a little ahead of the others, recognized by the crowd as privileged. Sandy sat Pronto, talking to the restive bay, proudly conscious of its new trappings and the remarks of the onlookers.

If Wilson Keith, clad in tweeds tailored on Fifth Avenue, a little portly, square-faced, confident, a trifle condescending, typified the East, Sandy was the West. A good horse is the incarnation of symmetry, grace and power. Sandy, erect in the saddle, lean and keen, matched all of Pronto's fitness. Man and mount both eminently belonged to the land, shimmering with sage, far-stretching to the mountains, a land that demanded and bred such a combination.

Sandy's clean-shaven face was sharp with obstacles faced and overcome, his eyes held clean fine spirit, his jaw showed determination and the good lines of his mouth belied obstinacy. He wore the regalia of his cow-punching holidays, soft-collared shirt of blue, silk bandanna of dark weave in lieu of tie, leather gauntlets, leather chaps, fringed and buttoned with leather and trimmed with disk of silver, silver spurs on his high-heeled boots, trousers of dark gray stripe, a quirt with the handle plaited in black and white diamonds of horsehair dangling from one wrist, and the blue Colts in the twin holsters. He could not avoid being picturesque, yet there was nothing of the masquerader, the moving-picture cowboy. He held the eye, even of Hereford, but only because they liked to gaze upon a good man on a good horse. His body responded to every shift of Pronto, jigging impatiently, showing off, pretending to be afraid of the panting locomotive, body shining like metal of bronze and aluminum, his nostrils pink as the inside of a shell, ears twitching, rider and mount one in every movement. Grit stood with plumy tail erect and waving gently, ears up, red tongue playing between white teeth, his eyes like jewels; braced on his feet, tiptoe on his pads, watching the parking of the private car with now and then a glance of inquiry at Sandy.

Keith stood by the railing of his platform, the darky ready with the dismounting stool. He surveyed the crowd affably, with the poise of a successful candidate assured of welcome, waving his hand in demi-salute to Sandy, Sam and Mormon, lifting his hat graciously to Miranda Bailey. The man and the car emanated prosperity. Yet, for all the booming of Casey Town, the finding of pay-ore, the sale of shares, Keith's present financial status was not all that he trusted it might be within a short time. It was part of the technique of his profession to assume a mask and manner of financial success, and of late he had worn these until at times they jaded him, but they were well designed, well worn, and no one doubted but that Wilson Keith was a man of ready millions.

Keith was essentially a gambler. He knew that those who bought his shares were largely tinctured with the same spirit that exists, more or less, in almost every man. They were amateurs and Keith the professional, that was the main difference. The average man likes to believe himself lucky. Keith was no exception. He knew the prevalence of the trait and traded upon it. Also he knew the gold mining game from prospect to prospectus and possible profit. But the expert faro-dealer, after his trick is over, is apt to take his wages to the roulette wheel of an opposition house and buck a game that his experience tells him is, like his own, run with the percentages against the player.

Keith had dallied with oil, had speculated, plunged, been persuaded to invest heavily. He was beginning to have a vague fear of not being so certain as he would have wished as to which end of the line he had taken, that of the baited hook, or the end that was attached to the reel that automatically plays the fish.

He sold gold and he was buying oil. More, he was sinking wells, infected with the fever of the game, whereas, with his own mines, he was cool with the poise of the physician who takes count of a pulse. Others, partners with him in new enterprises in the petroleum field, were making sudden fortunes. His turn had not come yet, but they assured him that his ventures promised even more than those that had enriched them. Faster than gold came out of Casey Town, Keith used it in Oklahoma and Texas. He had come west to view his resources, to strain them to the utmost, to overlook the ground with the eye of the past-master of promotion, who could conjure up visions of wealth from the barest indication of pay-ore, trusting to find inspiration for further flotation on his return to New York, his market-place, "fresh from the field of operations."

The engine uncoupled and panted off, leaving the car at rest on the spur-track. The fox-faced secretary came out, held the door open. Some one followed Molly Casey. Sandy surmised it must be Donald Keith, but he had sight for nothing except the slender figure whose radiant face, between a Panama hat and a dustcoat of pongee silk, shone straight at him. It was Molly, but a glorified Molly, woman not girl. The freckles had gone, the snub nose had become defined, the eyes of Irish blue seemed to have deepened in hue back of their smudgy lashes. The wide mouth was the same, scarlet and soft as cactus blossom, smiling, opening in a glad cry....

"Sandy!" Her arms went out toward him in greeting over the brass railing. Then Grit, catapulting from ground to platform, with frantic yaps of welcome, fairly bowled over the darky with his mounting block and bounded up into Molly's embrace. There was confusion on the platform for a moment with Grit as the nucleus. Another person had come out, evidently Miss Nicholson. She was neither undernourished nor thin, she was medium-sized and her bones were well covered. She had the general appearance of a white rabbit and the manners of a maternally intentioned but none too efficient hen. "Amenable" described her in one word. The darky was bringing out kitbags and suit-cases, piling them on the ground. Sam tackled him and showed him the flivver.