"By Jove!" he remarked, with his usual unconscious expletive, "I'd rather have a tiger-cat on my trail than that youngster, if he was to look that way. What do you suppose he's got in his cranium now?"
Rankin shook his head. "I don't know. He's beyond me."
Scarcely a minute passed before the boy returned. He had another bridle in his hand and a fresh pan of oats. As before, he started to pass without a word, but Rankin halted him. "What's the matter with your clothes, Ben?" he queried.
The lad looked at his questioner. "Horse threw me, sir."
Rankin paused, his face growing momentarily more severe.
"Ben," he said at last, "did Mr. Baker hire you to break his horses? If I were you I'd put those things away and ask his pardon."
The boy looked from one man to the other uncertainly. Obviously, this phase of the matter had not occurred to him. Obviously, too, the point of view must be correct, for both Rankin and Scotty were solemn as the grave. The lad shot out toward the pasture a glance that spoke volumes; then he turned to Baker.
Scotty caught his cue. "Granted--this time," he answered.
A half-hour later, Rankin and Ben, the latter carefully washed, the rents in his trousers temporarily repaired, were ready to go home. Not until the very last moment did Florence appear; then, her face a bit flushed, she came out to the buckboard.
"Good-bye," she said simply. There was a moment's pause; then, with a deepening color, she turned to Ben Blair. "Come again soon," she added in a low tone.
Summer, tan-colored, musical with note of katydid and cicada, and the constant purr of the south wind, was upon the prairie country. Under the eternal law of necessity,--the necessity of sunburnt, stunted grass,--the boundaries of the range extended far in every direction. The herds bearing the Box R brand no longer fed in one body, but scattered far and wide. Often for a week at a time the men did not sleep under cover. Morning and night, when a semblance of dew was upon the blighted grass, the cattle grazed. The life was primitive and natural almost beyond belief in a world of artificial civilization; but it was independent, care-free, and healthy.
The land surrounding the ranch-house was now almost as bare as the palm of a hand. Only one object relieved the impression of desolation, and that was a tree. It stood carefully fenced about in the drain from the big artesian well,--a vivid blot of green against the dun background. The first year after he came, Rankin had imported it,--a goodly sized soft maple; and in the pathway of constantly trickling water, it had grown and prospered. It was the only tree for miles and miles about, except the scrawny scrub-oaks, cotton-woods, and wild plums that flanked the infrequent creeks,--creeks which in Summer, save in deepest holes, reverted to mere dry runs. Beneath its shade Rankin had constructed a rough bench, and therein Ma Graham, day after day when her housework was finished, dozed and sewed and dozed again, apparently as forgetful as the cowboys upon the prairies that beyond her vision were great cities where countless thousands of human beings sweltered and struggled in desperate competition for daily bread.