Alfred met her, and his exclamation, and Florence’s rapt eyes shining on her face, and Stillwell’s speechlessness made her self-conscious. Laughing, she tried to put up the mass of hair.
“I must—look a—fright,” she panted.
“Wal, you can say what you like,” replied the old cattleman, “but I know what I think.”
Madeline strove to attain calmness.
“My hat—and my combs—went on the wind. I thought my hair would go, too.... There is the evening star.... I think I am very hungry.”
And then she gave up trying to be calm, and likewise to fasten up her hair, which fell again in a golden mass.
“Mr. Stillwell,” she began, and paused, strangely aware of a hurried note, a deeper ring in her voice. “Mr. Stillwell, I want to buy your ranch—to engage you as my superintendent. I want to buy Don Carlos’s ranch and other property to the extent, say, of fifty thousand acres. I want you to buy horses and cattle—in short, to make all those improvements which you said you had so long dreamed of. Then I have ideas of my own, in the development of which I must have your advice and Alfred’s. I intend to better the condition of those poor Mexicans in the valley. I intend to make life a little more worth living for them and for the cowboys of this range. To-morrow we shall talk it all over, plan all the business details.”
Madeline turned from the huge, ever-widening smile that beamed down upon her and held out her hands to her brother.
“Alfred, strange, is it not, my coming out to you? Nay, don’t smile. I hope I have found myself—my work—my happiness—here under the light of that western star.”