She made a wide circle around the head of the herd, charging upon the Colonel. Her pony sat on its haunches, pivoted; Lorena's voice stabbed through the dust, and the Colonel, hearing how crisply those words fell across the intervening space, knew she was on the warpath.
"What did San Saba want?"
"Want—want? Why, girl, I told you he come on a friendly visit!"
"Pop—don't lie. Keep your fish stories for business deals."
"Lorena—I got a mind to tan your britches! Are you saying I'm crooked with my tongue?"
The girl nodded vigorously. "You'd hemstitch the truth whenever it suited you. But I'm not deceived. What did San Saba want?"
"Girl, I raised you to be a lady! Now act like one!"
"Pop, if you call me a lady once more I'll shout. Bury it—burn it!"
Colonel Wyatt shrewdly saw a chance to shift the subject, and his voice fell to melancholy tones. "Your poor mamma. I promised her I'd raise you to be genteel."
"That's right—sing the sad songs. Blame my mother. Cut it out, Pop. If you wanted to make a lady of me why wean me with a horse and a rope? Say, I haven't worn but one dress in six years. I'd feel like a squaw in nice clothes."
The Colonel squinted at the sun and dropped his white mane. "I did the best I knew how, Lorena. I guess maybe it wasn't such a good job at that."
That roused her sympathy instantly, and her hand fell on his shoulder. "Now, Pop, I'm not blaming you a bit. Texas Fever, I like the way you brought me up!"
The Colonel smiled his best. "All right, honey, that's a nice word for the old man."
And so the subject was closed and the dangerous topic avoided, as he thought. But five minutes later she turned upon him and the same crisp question startled him: "What did San Saba want?"
"Blisterin' liniment, can't you get that off your mind? Why do you keep askin'?"
"Because I want to know," replied Lorena placidly. "What's he after?"
The Colonel groaned. "None o' your business, girl. It was private an' personal."
"Then," said Lorena, "it must be awful dirty."
"Dirty! Use that word again and I'll tan your britches!"
She was not to be turned. "Why did he tell you to stay west of the trail?"
"Because the herds ahead of us are spreadin' the fever, an' he warned me to stay clear of the beaten track. Also, the water's better out this way."
The girl digested that, Colonel Wyatt meanwhile praying for peace. It was not to be; Lorena shook her head. "How could San Saba know about the country off here? He's a Southerner, like us. Pop, you're too clumsy at greasing the axle."
He assumed an air of mystery. "Well, since you're so all-fired smart, I guess I got to say there's apt to be trouble ahead of us."
"What trouble?"
The Colonel rose in his stirrup. "Beard o' Judas, get back to your place! I'm sayin' no more!"
She saw he would go no farther and so abandoned her direct attack. Experience had taught Lorena that her father was an exceedingly dangerous man when fully aroused. There were pieces of his business she could never discover. Sometimes she heard stray reports, sometimes she made shrewd guesses and in each instance it left her troubled, uncertain—She was, above all else, loyal to the very core; but even loyalty could not subdue the distrust that occasionally—and more frequently of late—came to her heart. The Diamond W had not prospered these last six years or so. Why this should be she could not tell. All she knew was that the Colonel had grown more nervous, more secretive, and that there was an air about the outfit she liked little enough. San Saba, for example. Her father had kept the man season after season...
"Trouble is what I guessed," she shot back. "Trouble always comes with San Saba."
"Seems like you have an undue distrust of him, Lorena. I never had a better foreman."
"Nor a more crooked one. He's got a bad face. Always made me feel like I was stepping on a snake. A renegade, that fellow. I never was so glad as when he quit. What's he doing now?"
"Don't know," grunted Colonel Wyatt.
The girl studied his face for quite a while. In the end she pressed her heels against the pony's flanks and sprang away. Wyatt had sight of open rebellion on her clear features. Nor did she resume her place on the left of the herd, but raced up and over a ridge and vanished from sight.
"She'll ride it off," murmured Wyatt, trying to convince himself. Yet he was not so sure. Lorena had stubborn blood; she had curiously straightforward ideas that on occasion confounded all his plausible explanations. "She'll ride it off. The girl has got to learn it's a tough world and maybe it takes fire to fight fire. By the stones o' Peter—yes, she will!"
Lorena's pony, given rein, fled over the rolling ground. The girl swayed in the saddle as if to relieve her muscles, and presently her doubts went away. Up the swelling folds of earth and down the coulee sides, with the sun pouring its heat out of the sky. Cloud castles floated across the blue. Afar she could see the frosted peaks of the Rockies. North, beyond that cloudy strip that was the horizon, lay Dakota. North was adventure—north was another world. Already she felt the difference in climate; the air was lighter, it brought up a sense of utter freedom, it had the power to make her giddy.
"Well, I wish I were a man. I'd never stop—I never would. Ho—what's over there, Mister Jefferson Davis?"
The horse, hearing its name, promptly applied weight to its front feet and came to a stop. Lorena was on a hump of land that curved across the prairie like a swell of the ocean. A mile distant horse and rider stood immovable on another rise of ground. Lorena stood in the stirrups, shaded her eyes, and studied this intrusion.
"Not an Indian. Well, let's go see."
She proceeded at a sedate pace, noting that the strange rider likewise advanced. A white man, all right; riding erect and free. But not a trapper. Good horse—puncher's clothing—young and no whiskers. Lorena stopped and waited. The newcomer trotted on, wheeled to approach on Lorena's gun side. That was manners. His rope, she saw, had one end tied to the horn, his saddle was double cinch. He had a familiar face, a rather blocky face with big features and wide-spaced eyes set rather far back. Not that the face bore resemblance to any family she knew, but that it was a stamp familiar in the South. And strangely bleached for a Western man. Lorena's curiosity leaped to immense proportions. The stranger stopped ten yards off and raised his right hand.
"How."
"Why—you're from Texas!"
"That's right." Then she saw him bend over the horn, eyes flashing surprise. "By George, a woman." And his hat came off.
"Of course," said she. Adding with a trace of wistfulness, "Just so you don't call me a lady it's all right."
"Ma'm, in Texas—as elsewhere—all women are ladies."
"Oh, fiddlesticks! You sound like Pop. However did you get so pale?"
"I've been East awhile."
"Sho' enough?" inquired Lorena eagerly. "I'd like to see Omaha some day, myself."
"Well, farther east than that. Say New York—or Boston."
Quite a long silence. Lorena gravely considered this, her features puckered, owlish. "That's different. Too far east. But I'd like to see Omaha or New Orleans. Where you bound?"
"North—let's ride that way."
So they fell in, side by side, and ambled leisurely across the broad prairie. Lorena still was occupied with the remoteness of New York and Boston, turning the matter over and over in her mind, weighing the sound of it, the possible truthfulness of it. The stranger seemed content to keep the silence, riding with his eyes sweeping the