But Dr. Mayfield had been taking trouble for people all his life and now that he was retired from practice he considered that he had nothing else to do. “’Rome Ojeda didn’t want to let him go, not a little bit, but I said I simply had to have him for a friend of mine, a Ranger up here, and Ginger brought him round. I guess Ginger can make him do just about anything she wants,” he chuckled, “hard-boiled cow-puncher that he is.” He was rather elaborately casual about it, and he thought he saw the young man’s sunburn reinforced by a deeper color.
“Is she—I hope Ginger is well?” said Dean Wolcott civilly.
“Oh, good Lord, yes,” said the doctor, comfortably. “Never knew the child to be anything else. I remember offering her a dollar a day for every day she’d stay in bed while she had the measles but she took it standing! I was in great luck to keep her off her pony. Come on, Sam—can’t you spruce up a little? We’ve got company on board! Yes, Ginger’s well; I should say she is—blooming! Busier than a whole hive of bees, of course, running the ranch. Remarkable girl, Virginia McVeagh; combines her father and her mother to an astonishing degree. They were an odd pair to come together, different as chalk and cheese—but they made a success of it.” There was the faintest possible emphasis on the pronoun. “Heard a good deal of talk, the time I went down there after Snort, about her being engaged to ’Rome Ojeda.”
“Yes?” said Dean, courteously attentive.
“Yes. In fact, ’Rome himself rather gave me to understand—but I don’t know. I won’t believe it till I hear it from Ginger. I hope she won’t be in too much of a hurry. Still, he’s a fine, upstanding boy, ’Rome Ojeda, and he’s known her all her life and he understands her. Well, Snort’s waiting for you in the corral! A good horse, but he hasn’t been handled right—not what I call right. ’Rome’s pretty hard—and pretty harsh, I consider, with his stock. I’m afraid you won’t find him a very comfortable mount.”
“I don’t expect to,” said Dean Wolcott, grimly, a look of reminiscence in his eyes. “But I expect to ride him. I—doubtless it seems rather absurd to you, Doctor, my desire for that particular horse, but I think I’ve come to consider him as a sort of symbol; he showed me—and incidentally the rest of the world”—he was able to grin, ruefully, at the memory—“my utter unfitness; it will be a satisfaction, now that I can ride, to prove it on Snort. It will rather—redeem me in my own eyes.”
“I can understand your feelings perfectly,” said the doctor cordially. As a matter of fact, the young man had no idea as to how thoroughly the doctor understood all of his feelings. “But I’m going to caution you about overdoing; it’s hard work, and rough at times, as I said a little while ago, but you can take it reasonably.”
“I’m hard as nails, Doctor; quite fit.”
The doctor nodded. “Yes, I believe you are. But there may be slumps, you know; I don’t want to alarm you, but—arm you for them.”
“You’re very kind; I will bear it in mind.” It was quite clear, however, that he considered the warning wholly superfluous; there was a triumphant strength and verve about him.