“Guess you wouldn’t believe she told me her secret—told me somethin’ she had never told anybody else, an’ made me swear not to mention. Guess you don’t believe that, neither?”
“You guess right again.” Linder was quite unperturbed. He knew something of Drazk’s gift for romancing.
Drazk leaned over in the saddle until he could reach Linder’s ear with a loud whisper. “And she called me ‘dear’; ‘George dear,’ she said, when I came away.”
“The hell she did!” said Linder, at last prodded into interest. He considered the “George dear" idea a daring flight, even for Drazk. “Better not let old Y.D. hear you spinning anything like that, George, or he’ll be likely to spoil your youthful beauty.”
“Oh, Y.D.‘s all right,” said George, knowingly. “Y.D.‘s all right. Well, I guess I’ll let Pete feed a bit here, and then we’ll go back for his blanket. You’ll have to excuse me a bit these days, Lin; you know how it is when a fellow’s in love.”
“Huh!” said Linder.
George dropped behind, and an amused smile played on the foreman’s face. He had known Drazk too long to be much surprised at anything he might do. It was Drazk’s idea of gallantry to make love to every girl on sight. Possibly Drazk had managed to exchange a word with Zen, and his imagination would readily expand that into a love scene. Zen! Even the placid, balanced Linder felt a slight leap in the blood at the unusual name, which to him suggested the bright girl who had come into his life the night before. Not exactly into his life; it would be fairer to say she had touched the rim of his life. Perhaps she would never penetrate it further; Linder rather expected that would be the case. As for Drazk—she was in no danger from him. Drazk’s methods were so precipitous that they could be counted upon to defeat themselves.
Below stretched the valley of the South Y.D., almost a duplicate of its northern neighbor. The stream hugged the feet of the hills on the north side of the valley; its ribbon of green and gold was like a fringe gathered about the hem of their skirts. Beyond the stream lay the level plains of the valley, and miles to the south rose the next ridge of foothills. It was from these interlying plains that Y.D. expected his thousand tons of hay. There is no sleugh hay in the foothill country; the hay is cut on the uplands, a short, fine grass of great nutritive value. This grass, if uncut, cures in its natural state, and affords sustenance to the herds which graze over it all winter long. But it occasionally happens that after a snow-fall the Chinook wind will partially melt the snow, and then a sudden drop in the temperature leaves the prairies and foothills covered with a thin coating of ice. It is this ice covering, rather than heavy snow-fall or severe weather, which is the principal menace to winter grazing, and the foresighted rancher aims to protect himself and his stock from such a contingency by having a good reserve of hay in stack.
Here, then, was the valley in which Y.D. hoped to supplement the crop of his own hay lands. Linder’s appreciative eye took in the scene: a scene of stupendous sizes and magnificent distances. As he slowly turned his vision down the valley a speck in the distance caught his sight and brought him to his feet. Shading his eyes from the bright afternoon sun he surveyed it long and carefully. There was no doubt about it: a haying outfit was already at work down the valley.
Leaving his team to manage themselves Linder dropped from his wagon and joined Transley. “Some one has beat us to it,” he remarked.