DEEPLY steeped in gloom perfectly described the condition of young Nixon J. Peters. Loneliness and bitter regret pervaded his soul as he sat by himself on the rear seat of the flying sleigh and thought of what might have been. He had reason to believe that he was the best skater and ski jumper entered in the winter sports’ contests at Devil’s Lake, on the preceding afternoon, and yet he had lost both main events by an apparent failure to look well to his equipment at the last moment. Every one had expected that he would blunder somewhere, and so no one was greatly disappointed; that is, no one except Nixon J. Peters.
Almost at the take-off of the jump, one of Nixon’s skis had broken. He had taken a wild header, and landed in a snow bank with heels in the air. A big laugh had been the result. Also, he had cast a skate at the critical moment of the skating race, and the other contestants had slid past him, Porter Markham in the lead. This same Porter Markham, too, had won the ski jump. Now, Porter Markham was on the front seat of the sleigh, driving blithely, and exchanging jest and small talk with Hesther Morton, who sat beside him. Truly, Nixon J. Peters’ lines had fallen in hard places!
Nixon was “Nix” to those who knew him best. Often he suffered the crowning indignity of being referred to as the “Saphead.” He had heard the unlovely nickname applied to him many times while digging himself out of the snow bank. It had punctuated the merriment released by his sorry mishap. Hesther Morton had joined in the riot of laughter. Nixon knew this only too well, for she was the first person he had seen after digging the snow out of his eyes. For Hesther to be amused at his expense—well, that was something that hurt.
Then, while seeking, with dogged resolution, to retrieve himself on the steel runners, a strap had broken, and a skate had shot off across the glittering ice. Peters had slipped and slammed around on the course like a crazy curling stone, finally cutting the feet out from under a fat spectator, who called him Saphead right to his face! Ah, what a wind-up for a sorry afternoon! Peters clenched his hands in his bearskin gloves and crouched down on the rear seat in a fruitless effort to efface himself.
He was nineteen, and Porter Markham was twenty. They both worked for Uncle Silas Goddard, who had a ranch in Montana, and made a business of sending range horses into North Dakota to be halter broken and sold to the settlers. Goddard was “uncle” to all his men, in the sense that gives an avuncular character to every genial, middle-aged person who looks after the welfare of younger employees.
In the early summer, Uncle Silas had sent a hundred horses into North Dakota. Business had not been good, and late fall found half the horses still on hand. These horses were being wintered at the Morton ranch, on marsh hay, cut and stacked by Peters, Markham, and Reece Bailey, who had been sent by Uncle Silas to take care of the horse herd. When spring came, there was a promise of turning off every head of the stock at a good profit.
The winter, so far, had not been particularly lonely for the Montana men. The snows of December had been light, and it had been possible for the horses to paw out considerable forage in the hills. January, however, brought in a good fall of “the beautiful,” and it had been necessary to corral and shelter the animals and to go extensively into the feeding.
Reece Bailey, Uncle Si’s foreman, found time to play cribbage with Lance Morton, Hesther’s father; and Peters and Nixon acquired leisure for skating and skiing, popular sports at their home ranch in the Rockies. A river—it would have been a creek in a country of large streams—flowed through the Morton holdings, and its glassy surface offered a resistless invitation to the steel runners. As for the skiing, there were plain and hill for running, climbing, and glissading. While Bailey and Morton were busy at their eternal “fifteen-two, fifteen-four,” Peters and Markham were skating or skiing, often with Hesther, who was fond of both sports. The girl, if appearances were to be believed, was rather fond of Markham, also, but had few smiles to waste on Peters.
In his bashful, blundering way, Peters tried to make himself agreeable to Hesther. He was big and awkward, however, and had tow-colored hair, a slow wit, and few graces of speech or manner. His efforts to impress Hesther were overwhelmed by the never-failing persiflage and the rakish dress and carriage of handsome Porter Markham. Markham possessed a confidence in himself that was sublime, a confidence that shone brilliantly in contrast with the clumsy ineffectiveness of Nixon J. Peters.