CHAPTER III
THE STAGE ARRIVES
The Timber City stage creaked and rattled as the horses toiled up the long slope of the Dog Creek divide. The driver dozed on his seat, his eyes protected from the glare of the hot June sun by the wide brim of his hat, opened mechanically at intervals to glance along the white, dusty trail. Inside, Winthrop Adams Endicott smiled as he noted the eager enthusiasm with which his young wife scanned the panorama of mountains and plain that stretched endlessly away to disappear in a jumble of shimmering heat waves.
"Oh, Win! Don't you just love it? The big black mountains with their girdles of green timber, the miles, and miles, and miles of absolute emptiness, the smell of the sage—yes, and the very rattle of this bumpy old stage!"
Endicott laughed: "I believe you do love it——"
"Love it! Of course I love it! And so do you love it! And you were just as crazy about coming as I was—only you wouldn't admit it. It's just as Tex said that day way up on top of Antelope Butte. He was speaking of you and he said: 'He'll go back East and the refinement will cover him up again—and that's a damned shame. But he won't be just the same, because the prejudice is gone. He's chewed the meat of the cow country and found it good.' I've always remembered that, and it's true—you are not just the same, dear," she reached over and took his hand in both of hers. "And, oh, Win—I'm glad—glad!"
Endicott smiled as he raised the slim hand to his lips: "Considerable of a philosopher—Tex. And cowboy par excellence. I hope we can find him. If we buy the ranch I've been counting on him to manage it."
"We've got to find him! And dear Old Bat, too! And, Win, won't it be just grand? We'll live out here in the summer and in the winter we'll go to New York and Florida, and we'll never, never go back to old Half-Way Between. The place fairly reeks of soap and whisky—and I don't care if their old soap does float!"