“I just know he’ll win,” exclaimed the girl. “Why look at him! Isn’t he a beauty?”
“Got a back like a billiard table,” commented Custer proudly.
They rode down among the heifers. There were a dozen beauties — three-year-olds. Hidden to one side, behind a small bush, the man’s quick eyes discerned a little bundle of red and white.
“There it is, Grace,” he called, and the two rode toward it.
One of the heifers looked fearfully toward them, then at the bush and finally walked toward it, lowing plaintively.
“We’re not going to hurt it, little girl,” the man assured her.
As they came closer, there arose a thing of long, wobbly legs, big joints, and great, dark eyes, its spotless coat of red and white shining with health and life.
“The cunning thing!” cried the girl. “How I’d like to squeeze it! I just love ‘em, Custer!”
She had slipped from her saddle and, dropping her reins on the ground, was approaching the calf.
“Look out for the cow!” cried the man as he dismounted and moved forward to the girl’s side with his arm through the Apache’s reins. “She hasn’t been up much, and she may be a little wild.”
The calf stood its ground for a moment and then, with tail erect, cavorted madly for its mother behind whom it took refuge.
“I just love ‘em! I just love ‘em!” repeated the girl.
“You say the same thing about the colts and the little pigs,” the man reminded her.
“I love ‘em all!” she cried, shaking her head, her eyes twinkling.
“You love them because they’re little and helpless, just like babies,” he said. “Oh, Grace, how you’d love a baby!”
The girl flushed prettily. Quite suddenly, he seized her in his arms and crushed her to him, smothering her with a long kiss. Breathless, she wriggled partially away, but he still held her in his arms.
“Why won’t you, Grace?” he begged. “There’ll never be anybody else for me or for you. Father and Mother and Eva love you almost as much as I do, and, on your side, your mother and Guy have always seemed to take it as a matter of course that we’d marry. It isn’t the drinking, is it, dear?”
“No, it’s not that, Custer. Of course, I’ll marry you — someday; but not yet. Why, I haven’t lived yet, Custer! I want to live. I want to do something outside of the humdrum life that I have always led and the humdrum life that I shall live as a wife and mother. I want to live a little, Custer, and then I’ll be ready to settle down. You all tell me that I am beautiful, and down, away down in the depth of my soul, I feel that I have talent. If I have, I ought to use the gifts God has given me.”
She was speaking very seriously, and the man listened patiently and with respect, for he realized that she was revealing for the first time a secret yearning that she must have long held locked in her bosom.
“Just what do you want to do, dear?” he asked gently.
“I — oh, it seems silly when I try to put it in words, but, in dreams, it is very beautiful and very real.”
“The stage?” he asked.
“It is just like you to understand!” Her smile rewarded him. “Will you help me? I know Mother will object.”
“You want me to help you take all the happiness out of my life?” he asked.
“It would only be for a little while — just a few years, and then I would come back to you — after I had made good.”
“You would never come back, Grace, unless you failed,” he said. “If you succeeded, you would never be contented in any other life or atmosphere. If you came back a failure, you couldn’t help but carry a little bitterness always in your heart. It would never be the same dear, carefree heart that went away so gayly. Here, you have a real part to play in a real drama — not make-believe upon a narrow stage with painted drops.” He flung out a hand in broad gesture. “Look at the setting that God has painted here for us to play our parts in — the parts that He has chosen for us! Your mother played upon the same stage, and mine. Do you think them failures? And both were beautiful girls — as beautiful as you.”
“Oh, but you don’t understand after all, Custer!” she cried. “I thought you did.”
“I do understand that, for your sake, I must do my best to persuade you that you have as full a life before you here as upon the stage. I am fighting first for your happiness, Grace, and then for mine. If I fail, then I shall do all that I can to help you realize your ambition. If you cannot stay because you are convinced that you will be happier here, then I do not want you to stay.”
“Kiss me,” she demanded suddenly. “I am only thinking of it, anyway, so let’s not worry until there is something to worry about.”
CHAPTER II
THE MAN BENT his lips to hers again, and her arms stole about his neck. The calf, in the meantime, perhaps disgusted by such absurdities, had scampered off to try his brand-new legs again with the result that he ran into a low bush, turned a somersault, and landed on his back. The mother, still doubtful of the intentions of the newcomers, to whose malevolent presence she may have attributed the accident, voiced a perturbed low; whereupon there broke from the vicinity of the live oak a deep note not unlike the rumbling of distant thunder.
The man looked up.
“I think we’ll be going,” he said. “The Emperor has issued an ultimatum.”
“Or a bull, perhaps,” Grace suggested as they walked quickly toward her horse.
“Awful!” he commented as he assisted her into the saddle.
Then he swung to his own.
The Emperor moved majestically toward them, his nose close to the ground. Occasionally, he stopped, pawing the earth and throwing dust upon his broad back.
“Doesn’t he look wicked?” cried the girl. “Just look at those eyes!”
“He’s just an old bluffer,” replied the man. “However, I’d rather have you in the saddle, for you can’t always be sure just what they’ll do. We must call his bluff, though; it would never do to run from him — might give him bad habits.”
He rode toward the advancing animal, breaking into a canter as he drew near the bull and striking his booted leg with a quirt:
“Hi there, you old reprobate! Beat it!” he cried.
The bull stood his ground with lowered head and rumbled threats until the horseman was almost upon him; then, he turned quickly aside as the rider went past.
“That’s better,” remarked Custer as the girl joined him.
“You’re not a bit afraid of him, are you, Custer? You’re not afraid of anything.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he demurred. “I learned a long time ago that most encounters consist principally of bluff. Maybe I’ve just grown to be a good bluffer. Anyhow, I’m a better bluffer than the Emperor. If the rascal had only known it, he could have run me ragged.”
As they rode up the side of the basin, the man’s eyes moved constantly from point to point, now noting the condition of the