“Betchu we get his tail, Viper! Betchu I take the prize this year! I got seventy-five now. Make it seventy-six, Viper, and I’ll give you eight bones for dinner to-night.”
Cheerio, meanwhile, ruminating painfully upon Sandy’s revelation, and also upon that bronco tied to front of the ranch house, and its good-looking owner who was inside, unable to endure the picture his mind conjured of Hilda riding off with her caller into their own (his and Hilda’s) especial sun glow, jumped in a hurry upon Jim Crow’s back, and with the best of intentions sped back to O Bar O.
It was Sunday afternoon, and such of the ranch hands as were not off on some courting or hunting or fishing or riding expedition, were stretched out on the various cots that lined the long bunkhouse taking their weekly siesta. Cheerio himself was accustomed to spend his Sundays in his cave studio, but in these latter days—since in fact Hilda had ceased to ride with them in the evenings—even the painting had lost its charm for him. He spent his Sundays in the near vicinity of the ranch house, his hopeful eyes pinned upon that wide verandah on to which the girl now so seldom came.
Occasionally, as on this Sunday, Sandy would induce him into short excursions from the ranch, but Cheerio was restless and unsettled now, and far from being the satisfactory companion and oracle upon whom Sandy had depended.
Now as Cheerio paused at the bunkhouse, he turned over in his mind such small treasures as he possessed. He had a most ardent desire to endow Hilda with one or all of his possessions. He was obsessed with a longing to lay his hands upon certain treasures of a great house that should have been his own. His possessions at the ranch were modest enough. His wages had been spent mainly for paint and books. He surveyed the crude, but adequate, book-case he had built himself, and scanned the volumes laid upon the shelves. After all, one could offer no finer gift than a book. He chose carefully, with a thought rather for what might appeal especially to a girl of Hilda’s type than his own preferences.
As he came around the side of the house, he perceived that the bronco was gone. A momentary heartshake over the thought that Hilda might have gone with it, and then a great thumping of that sensitive organ as he saw the girl upon the steps. She was sitting in the sunlight, staring out before her in a day dream. Something in the mute droop of the expressive young mouth and the slight shadow cast by the lashes against her cheek gave Hilda a look of singular sadness and depression and sent her caller impetuously hurrying toward her. He had come, in fact, directly in front of her, before the eyes were lifted and Hilda looked back at him. Slowly the colour swept like the dawn over her young face, as he extended the book, stammering and blushing in his boyish way.
“M-m-m-miss Hilda, I r-r-recommend this f-for b-b-both pleasure and information. It’s p-p-part of one’s education to read Dumas.”
Education! The word was inflammatory. It was an affront to her pride. He was rubbing in the fact of her appalling ignorance. That was her own affair—her own misfortune. Hilda sprang to her feet, up in arms, on the defensive and the offensive. While the astonished Cheerio still extended the book—a silent peace offering—Hilda’s dark head tossed up, in that characteristic motion, while her foot stamped the ground.
“I don’t care for that kind of rot, thank you. My dad’s right. It’s better to be real people in the world rather than fake folk in a book.”
Again the head toss and the blaze of angry wide eyes; then, swift as a fawn, Hilda sped across the verandah and the ranch house door banged hard.