“I’m sure glad. You were tired. And the air here makes strangers sleepy. Come, we want you to meet old Bill. He calls himself the last of the cattlemen. He has lived in Texas and here all his life.”
Madeline accompanied Florence to the porch. Her brother, who was sitting near the door, jumped up and said:
“Hello, Majesty!” And as he put his arm around her he turned toward a massive man whose broad, craggy face began to ripple and wrinkle. “I want to introduce my friend Stillwell to you. Bill, this is my sister, the sister I’ve so often told you about—Majesty.”
“Wal, wal, Al, this’s the proudest meetin’ of my life,” replied Stillwell, in a booming voice. He extended a huge hand. “Miss—Miss Majesty, sight of you is as welcome as the rain an’ the flowers to an old desert cattleman.”
Madeline greeted him, and it was all she could do to repress a cry at the way he crunched her hand in a grasp of iron. He was old, white-haired, weather-beaten, with long furrows down his checks and with gray eyes almost hidden in wrinkles. If he was smiling she fancied it a most extraordinary smile. The next instant she realized that it had been a smile, for his face appeared to stop rippling, the light died, and suddenly it was like rudely chiseled stone. The quality of hardness she had seen in Stewart was immeasurably intensified in this old man’s face.
“Miss Majesty, it’s plumb humiliatin’ to all of us thet we wasn’t on hand to meet you,” Stillwell said. “Me an’ Al stepped into the P. O. an’ said a few mild an’ cheerful things. Them messages ought to hev been sent out to the ranch. I’m sure afraid it was a bit unpleasant fer you last night at the station.”
“I was rather anxious at first and perhaps frightened,” replied Madeline.
“Wal, I’m some glad to tell you thet there’s no man in these parts except your brother thet I’d as lief hev met you as Gene Stewart.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, an’ thet’s takin’ into consideration Gene’s weakness, too. I’m allus fond of sayin’ of myself thet I’m the last of the old cattlemen. Wal, Stewart’s not a native Westerner, but he’s my pick of the last of the cowboys. Sure, he’s young, but he’s the last of the old style—the picturesque—an’ chivalrous, too, I make bold to say, Miss Majesty, as well as the old hard-ridin’ kind. Folks are down on Stewart. An’ I’m only sayin’ a good word for him because he is down, an’ mebbe last night he might hev scared you, you bein’ fresh from the East.”