“That’s our gate,” said the doctor, presently, and his pleasant voice warmed suddenly with pride. “Here we are at the camp!” He spoke of it as if it might be the New Jerusalem. “Of course, we’ve kept things very plain and crude but”—the doctor always tried to be modest about his camp, to take the attitude that there were other camps in the state, in the country, some of which, many of which, perhaps, might equal his, but his voice and his eyes betrayed him. This was his promised land, where, thanks to the everlasting mercy of things, he was to sojourn for his life’s rich afternoon after long years of ardent service. It was his creation and his recreation; his child. “You see, we have the little individual cabins with a shower bath in every one, and the central dining room, and we bring down a cook and a maid and a chore boy, and there’s the little bathhouse where you can have a hot tub—oh, we figure we’ve got camping down to a pretty fine art—all the glory and none of the grime! Mild nights we sit round the camp fire, and when it’s nippy we have the Lodge, and the phonograph to dance by, and tables for bridge. You must join us whenever your duties will let you, Dean.”
“Thank you,” said Dean Wolcott. “I fancy, however, that I shall be busy by day and sleepy by night, sha’n’t I?” The fact was that he was hungrily eager for the vigorous, muscle and nerve testing job he had undertaken, and rather fed up on bridge and dancing, Boston—his own very particular corner of it—having welcomed him home with a warmth which was soothing and healing after Dos Pozos. “And—who are your guests at camp, Doctor?”
“They’re not my guests, really; it’s a coöperative affair, this lodge of ours in the wilderness—old friends, relatives, San José people, in the main; some from San Francisco; jolly, folksy folks who like to get their feet off the pavement.”
“Does Ginger come?” He was very direct about it.
“Oh, Ginger came once, long ago—twice, I believe, come to think of it—but I’ll tell you what it is, we’re not wild enough for Miss Ginger! We take some pretty hard trips—as you’ll find out—and do some pretty stiff stunts, but we haven’t her hell-for-leather, ride-’em-cowboy ideal!”
Dean Wolcott nodded. “I shall want to see her, once, before I go east again,” he said, levelly.
“Oh, certainly,” said Dr. Mayfield, hastily. “Certainly! And here’s Snort! Be careful how you go up to him, Dean; he has a very bad habit of pulling back, and he’s due to hurt himself or somebody else. I rather imagine he was tied up and beaten over the head when he was first broken to saddle, and ’Rome Ojeda hasn’t exactly—soothed him!” He paused in the unhitching of old Sam and watched the meeting between the quiet young man and the quivering wild-eyed horse. The moment was heavy with memory and challenge and promise.
“Hello, old son!” said Dean Wolcott, cordially. Snort trumpeted and flung up his head at the touch, but the easterner’s voice was smooth. “Steady, boy.... Those fireworks don’t register with me at all, now. I’ve had almost a year of that sort of thing, you see. If you’re feeding your fancy on what you’re going to do to the tenderfoot who rode you that historic day, you’re foiled. You and I will never dazzle the Big Week crowd, but I think you’ll find me remaining in or near the saddle during all our excursions together.” The red roan cocked his sensitive ears and rolled his eyes whitely.
Dr. Mayfield nodded approval. “That’s the idea, Dean. No quick movements.... Steady does it, with Snort. You know, I consider that there are very few essentially vicious horses; one now and then, of course, but in the main it’s only terror, terror and suspicion and the vivid memory of abuses.”
“Doctor,” the young man wanted to know, “is it too late for a ride?”